Simon Stiell, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has said he intends to review the COP process to make it as “effective as possible”. following the controversial conclusion to this year’s COP27 in Egypt, reports the Financial Times. The newspaper continues: “This year’s event ended with some key participants expressing dissatisfaction with the handling and negotiations at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which drew more than 45,000 participants. While many vulnerable and developing countries praised an agreement for a fund to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change, others hit out at the handling of the fortnight of talks and all-night wrangling that ended without any progress on global warming targets. Some diplomats questioned the integrity of the COP27 Egyptian presidency. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this: untransparent, unpredictable and chaotic,’ said one delegate. Countries’ negotiating teams were given a short amount of time in the early hours of Saturday morning to review draft texts for several key issues, people familiar with the matter said. That was ‘not a usual procedure’, said one EU official.” Stiell tells the FT he is aware of the concerns and would review the summit and the broader COP process: “What we will be doing when we get back home [to Bonn] is to review, and to look at areas of improvement.“ Questioned by the paper about the large number of fossil-fuel lobbyists reported to have been at COP27, Stiell responds saying “you can’t ignore them”, adding: “The question is how do you engage them and where do they fit within the process. I believe it’s absolutely essential that the process is completely transparent.” The FT adds: “One potential way to improve the process might be to look at involving future COP presidencies alongside the presidency-elect for a given year, Stiell said. ‘Can we work together in creating an expanded agenda?’”

In other COP27 news, Reuters focuses on the agreement by parties “for an overhaul of the post-World War Two international financial architecture”. The newswire says: “The UN summit…pressed for reform to speed up the flow of funding to developing countries – to help them cut emissions and cope with the floods or wildfires they are already experiencing…It referred to the need to reform international financial institutions. Avinash Prasad, climate adviser to the prime minister of Barbados, said the agreement reached in the early hours of Sunday had injected momentum into ‘a much bigger transformation of our global financial system’. It should lead to a tripling of the amount international financial institutions lend ‘with a clear focus on climate and sustainable development goals,’ Prasad said.”

The Guardian reports that “the US, fresh from reversing its 30 years of opposition to a ‘loss and damage’ fund for poorer countries suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis, has signalled that its longstanding image as global climate villain should now be pinned on a new culprit: China.” The article continues: “Kerry and his team were by the end of the talks ‘sick’ of shouldering the blame, according to Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser, now with the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington DC. ‘Somehow the US became the villain despite aggressive action on emissions, meanwhile Russia and China’s emissions are growing like crazy and yet they are not in the crosshairs of activists, it’s confusing,’ he said. ‘I mean it’s absurd. If we don’t get hold of China’s emissions the climate will spin out of control.’” Another Guardian article says “fears are growing among climate experts and campaigners over the influence of fossil fuel producers on global climate talks, as a key Gulf petro-state gears up to take control of the negotiations”.

The Guardian covers the views of Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary for climate change and net-zero in the UK, who told MPs yesterday in parliament: “We should be clear, on the crucial issue of 1.5C, this summit failed…And as a country that considers itself a climate leader, we have a responsibility and opportunity to set the pace in the year ahead and our moral authority in the negotiations depends on it.” Miliband also criticised the UK government for “indulging in a dash for new fossil fuel licences which won’t even make a difference to bills”.

Finally, the Washington Post carries a feature about veteran US climate envoy John Kerry, under the headline: “UN summit marks the latest hurdle in John F Kerry’s long climate crusade.” And the Times has launched a “carbon tracker”, which allows readers to “compare different nations’ efforts to reach net-zero”.

Shipping companies could exploit loopholes in upcoming UN regulations targeting carbon emissions, industry insiders have warned, potentially limiting environmental progress in one of the world’s most polluting sectors, reports the FT. It continues: “Some executives in the sector have highlighted various weaknesses in the rules, which will require them to grade the carbon intensity of individual ships from next year, with others accusing certain member states within the UN’s International Maritime Organization of resisting tougher measures. But the shipping industry has also come under fire from experts who say the regulations were watered down because of its own lobbying.” The FT explains that the “Carbon Intensity Indicator” regulations are being exploited with “workarounds”, according to insiders: “Based on historic emissions data, some 25% of container ships are set to receive the lowest rating as well as 15% of bulk and crude tankers, according to estimates produced by industry group Bimco and shared with the Financial Times.”

The Press Association reports that campaigners have called for the UK to follow other European countries in pulling out of a treaty that “lets fossil fuel giants sue governments over their climate policies”. The newswire continues: “The controversial Energy Charter Treaty was established in the 1990s when the world energy system was heavily dominated by fossil fuels and enables foreign companies to challenge energy policies that threaten their investments, using secretive arbitration courts. A number of countries have faced costly legal challenges over reducing their reliance on fossil fuels and boosting renewables, including the Netherlands, which has faced a $1.4bn (£1.18bn) challenge over its phase-out of coal. Parties to the treaty, including the UK, will decide at a conference on Tuesday whether to adopt a modernised version of the agreement, which has a stronger climate focus and clarifies that states can regulate to reach emissions reductions targets. But a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, France, Germany and Poland, have said they are quitting the treaty and campaigners want the UK to follow suit.” Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Poland have already announced their withdrawal from the treaty. ClientEarth’s lawyer Amandine Van Den Berghe is quoted saying: ““The UK really shouldn’t be left behind this movement…If it is to be a real climate leader, the UK needs to stand with its climate allies in Europe and withdraw from this treaty that puts fossil fuel interests before climate action.”

In other UK news, the Daily Telegraph reports on its frontpage that “Shell is reviewing plans to invest £25bn in Britain’s energy system after Jeremy Hunt raided the industry for £55bn in windfall taxes”. The newspaper adds: “David Bunch, Shell’s UK chairman, said the expanded levy announced in the chancellor’s autumn statement is forcing the company to re-examine a slew of projects in the pipeline, from North Sea investments to renewable energy schemes.” The Independent reports on comments made by Jonathan Brearley, who heads boss of energy regulator Ofgem, who has said that wind turbines and solar panels have become the “cheapest, greenest and most secure energy available” to households across the UK amid a massive crisis for global fossil fuels. The paper says he told the Future of Utilities Summit in London yesterday: “With renewables and low-carbon generation becoming the cheapest form of energy, the economics has changed forever; that energy becoming not only the most sustainable, but also the cheapest and most secure option.” The Guardian reports: “[The] Charity Commission has confirmed that it is reviewing a complaint about the [climate-sceptic lobby group] Global Warming Policy Foundation after lawyers and MPs formally raised concerns about its charitable status.”

Finally, BBC News has a news feature about Europe’s biggest battery energy storage system which has begun operating near Hull: “The site, said to be able to store enough electricity to power 300,000 homes for two hours, went online at Pillswood, Cottingham, on Monday.” And the Daily Telegraph reports that “Waitrose is putting heat pumps in all its supermarkets as it brings forward net-zero plans in an effort to tackle spiralling energy prices”.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been “in decline since last year but could still be some way from their peak”, with the country’s policies “still not fully aligned with long-term goals to limit temperature increases”, Reuters reports. The findings have been published by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based thinktank, after “assessing emissions data and surveying 26 Chinese energy experts”. The newswire stresses that while China had made “remarkable achievements” in areas such as clean energy and electric vehicles, the nation remained “off track” in coal-fired power, iron and steel, adding that energy consumption, driven by “heavy industrial economic growth”, was still “growing too fast to meet climate goals”. Meanwhile, Al Arabiya, citing a report by AFP, writes that China has “welcomed” a “deal” struck at the “landmark” COP27 climate summit in Egypt, but “warned” there was still a “long way to go” for “global cooperation in curbing rising temperatures”. China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning is quoted saying: “The road map for doubling global adaptation funding is still unclear, which is not conducive to building mutual trust between the north and the south,” referring to funds for poorer countries already affected by climate change, the article notes.

Separately, Reuters has an analysis by Gloria Dickie, who writes that the UN climate talks in Egypt closed on Sunday with a “resolution” to “address the dual crises of climate change and nature loss”, but “did little to boost” next month’s UN biodiversity summit, COP15. Brian O’Donnell, director of non-profit organisation Campaign for Nature, is quoted saying the decision at COP27 “failed to signal the need for [COP15] to be successful, demonstrating the continued unnecessary and outdated walls between the UN climate and biodiversity approaches”. The newswire says that “China holds the COP15 presidency, although the summit is taking place in Montreal, the seat of the CBD secretariat, after being postponed four times from its original 2020 date in the Chinese city of Kunming”.

Elsewhere, the state-run newspaper China Daily has published a comment piece by Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing-based thinktank, titled: “How 5G, AI can help fossil fuel better adapt to post-COP27 world.“ Finally, the state-run industry newspaper China Energy News reports that three government bodies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission, yesterday “jointly” issued a notice to “increase efforts to revitalise the industrial economy”. The notice mentions “ensuring the safety of power and coal supply to meet the winter peak” and “enhancing the capacity of strategic resource supply security”, among other measures, the article notes.

Reuters reports that Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched a “new $1bn private equity strategy to invest in companies which will remove one gigatonne of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere by 2050 or prevent that amount entering the atmosphere”. The newswire adds: “Investments will focus on the mobility, power, sustainable food and agriculture sectors and circular economy and deliver both financial returns and positive environmental impact, MSIM said, [adding] it would also tie some of the 1Gt investment team’s compensation to the emissions performance of underlying investments.”

There is continuing comment reacting to the conclusion of COP27. The Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen warns: “The announcement that climate negotiators at COP27 have agreed to establish a global fund to compensate poorer nations for damage wrought by climate change was hailed as a major accomplishment by climate activists. It might instead prove a major boost to anti-green populist parties worldwide…Consider the potential cost: John F Kerry…said earlier this year that such payments would run into the trillions of dollars. That’s ‘trillions’ with a T. It is simply incomprehensible that voters in the world’s developed countries will be willing to transfer that amount of money from themselves to the world’s poorest countries. Such generosity flies in the face of everything that democratic elections over the past century have taught us about voter behaviour…Any political rebellion would likely benefit populist parties. Most conventional conservative parties support green policies…Support for strong climate policy, with few exceptions, therefore encompasses the entire traditional left-right divide. That leaves only populist parties to exploit the discontent…Climate change is a serious challenge. But activists and their political allies have failed to make the case that citizens should make significant sacrifices in their living standards to meet the threat. Pushing such policies forward without ensuring the public is on board would make the populist movements of the past decade look mild in comparison.”

An editorial in the Sun says: “At least the failed COP27 eco summit exposed the real climate villains. China and India are not only two of the top three polluters but they won’t pay into any ‘reparations’ fund. UK emissions are down to 1% of the global total and falling fast. Yet half-wit extremists vandalise buildings, pretend Britain is the problem and give China, India and others a free pass.” (This view is based on current annual emissions, not cumulative historic emissions, which show the UK to be among the world’s highest contributors to current warming, particularly when measured against its population.) An editorial in the Daily Telegraph describes COP27 as “hot air”: “Although there was agreement on establishing a fund [for loss and damage], the details have yet to be resolved. The most controversial decisions have been kicked into next year, when a ‘transitional committee’ is expected to make recommendations for countries to adopt at the COP28, a year from now. They would cover ‘identifying and expanding sources of funding’: in other words, who will pay, and how much, has yet to be settled.”

Simon Mundy in the Financial Times says: “There are ample grounds for profound disappointment, most obviously the bizarre and toxic squeamishness about explicit references to fossil fuels…Yet this year’s agreement on loss and damage – which looked highly unlikely to some observers before the summit — showed that a concerted push for more ambition can yet bear fruit.” In the Times, Hugo Rifkind adopts a cynical tone: “From [COP28] onwards, this [COP27 deal] raises the prospect of COP becoming a forum that exists not to prevent climate change but rather to argue over who pays for the damage while it rampages on…Which, in the end, can only lead to a sort of environmental nimbyism.” In the Independent, Harry Cockburn argues that the “damning catalogue of incompetence now risks fatally undermining the whole COP effort…Will governments want to keep being associated with such a massive level of failure?” Veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce, writing for YaleEnvironment360, says the “agreement does nothing to pull the planet back from the climatic brink”. Dave Keating in EnergyMonitor writes: “The loss and damage deal was a significant accomplishment for campaigners. Overall, however, Sharm El Sheikh feels like a wasted COP and the trends seem to suggest that Dubai will be another.” Joydeep Gupta in China Dialogue argues that the “loss and damage fund [is] the lone success of COP27”.

In other COP27 reaction, Dr Andrew Coburn says in a comment piece for Reuters that the conference has given companies a “clearer steer” on getting to net-zero: “Now it’s time to act.” A collective of academics, including Prof Mark Maslin at UCL, claim in a piece for the Conversation that COP27 “will be remembered as a failure”. Finally, Reuters has an “explainer” by Jake Spring and Shadia Nasralla titled: “How far has COP27 inched beyond past climate deals?” And the Times‘ environment editor Adam Vaughan has published a Q&A: “Will the deal on a ‘loss and damage fund’ be enough?”

Saudi Arabia is working to keep fossil fuels “at the centre of the world economy for decades to come” by “lobbying, funding research and using its diplomatic muscle to obstruct climate action,” writes New York Times climate reporter, Hiroko Tabuchi. She writes: “The government-controlled oil company, Saudi Aramco, already produces one out of every 10 of the world’s barrels of oil and envisions a world where it will be selling even more.” Disclosures to the Department of Justice tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics, show “Saudi interests have spent close to $140m since 2016 on lobbyists and others to influence American policy and public opinion, making it one of the top countries spending on U.S. lobbying,” Tabuchi writes. The article details the work of the LS2 group, a lobbying agency in Iowa and one of the few lobbying firms that stuck with the Saudis as others “cut ties” after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 by Saudi operatives. The article continues: “States like Iowa, the nation’s top ethanol producer, could be fertile ground for the Saudis’ view on electric vehicles, said Jeff M. Angelo, a former Iowa state senator who now hosts a talk show and was approached by Saudi representatives.“ It quotes him saying: “Ethanol producers here in Iowa are saying the same thing: ‘Isn’t it terrible that the Biden administration is forcing you to buy an electric car when we could be producing biofuels right here in Iowa, and making money, and supporting our farmers, and being energy independent?’” At the latest round of talks at COP27 in Egypt, “Saudi Arabia highlighted an alternative vision, one that relies on large-scale carbon capture and storage. By 2027, the kingdom will build a facility capable of storing as much carbon dioxide as 2 million gasoline cars would emit in a year,” Tabuchi writes. “That would be a breakthrough, because carbon capture has yet to be proven at scale. Yet it was Saudi Arabia’s way of preparing for a warming world, said Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s climate envoy. ‘In Saudi Arabia, we’re committed to being ahead of it.’”

A new study finds that the Barents Sea, located between Norway and Russia, may store one-third more carbon than previously thought. Using ship-based observations and high-resolution ocean models, researchers identify a deep-ocean transport pathway of carbon-rich water. They calculate that the pathway transports about 13.6m tonnes of CO2 annually. The authors note that changing sea-ice cover in the future will affect the formation of these deep waters, possibly resulting in a “reduced transport of carbon from the atmosphere…and a so far unconstrained amplification of global warming”.

Implementing the adaptation measures and renewable energy sources required to limit warming to 2C will use up 8.3% of the remaining carbon budget to keep to that temperature limit, according to new research. Scientists use models to estimate the carbon cost of putting in place “selected adaptation-related interventions” as well as the “emissions from energy used to deploy renewable capacity”. They find that while a “gradual decarbonisation pathway” that holds the world to 2C of warming will result in about 96.3bn tonnes of CO2 emissions (GtCO2), a rapid decarbonisation that keeps global temperatures to 1.5C will emit only 21.2GtCO2. Under current policies, however, these emissions will “roughly double”, they write, “mainly because a slower transition relies more on fossil fuel energy”.