The US has “renewed threats” to quit the International Energy Agency (IEA) “unless the organisation scales back climate advocacy and focuses on energy security”, reports Bloomberg. The outlet quotes US energy secretary Chris Wright as saying “we’re definitely not satisfied” and that the IEA must undergo reforms “for the US to remain a long-term member”. The outlet says the IEA “didn’t immediately comment” on these remarks. In an interview in the Financial Times today, however, IEA chief Fatih Birol says that “fracturing in the global order” is resulting in global energy policy divides. The newspaper says Birol believes the gaps are increasingly stark, “with the US rowing back climate pledges, while China and Europe push forward with electrification”. He tells the Financial Times that climate change is “moving down the international policy agenda”. 

MORE ON US 

• The Guardian reports that Japan is planning to invest in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth around $36bn as part of the “first wave of a deal” with US president Donald Trump. 
• The states of California and Connecticut are plotting a “plan of attack” against Trump’s decision to rescind the endangerment finding, reports Reuters. 
• Politico looks at how California “could be the big winner” from the endangerment finding repeal. 
• Legal challenges have been filed against the Trump administration’s “renewed push for oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska”, according to the Associated Press. 
• Conservation and historical groups have sued the Trump administration over National Park Service policies that they believe “erase history and science”, including on climate change, reports the Associated Press. 

Red alerts for flooding have been issued in parts of France “as the aftermath of Storm Nils causes chaos across the country”, reports the Guardian. The newspaper says: “Flood waters have inundated homes and isolated villages after the Garonne River overflowed its banks, with hydrologists warning that rain is falling on soils that have hit record-breaking levels of saturation.” The newspaper quotes ecological transition minister Monique Barbut as saying: “People who follow climate issues have been warning us for a long time that events like this will happen more often…In fact, tomorrow has arrived.” Le Monde says the flooding is “unprecedented”. Another Le Monde article says that while storms are “not new”, their impacts “have been worsened by climate change”. 

MORE ON EXTREME WEATHER

• At least 59 people were killed in Cyclone Gezani in Madagascar last week, reports Reuters. 
• Bloomberg covers a new study which finds that climate change “intensified the rain that fell over Spain’s Valencia region in 2024”.
• Spain has approved financial aid of around €7bn (£6.1bn) for people affected by recent storms, says Reuters.

Analysis from insurance company Aviva shows that one in nine new homes in England have been built in “areas of medium or high flood risk”, reports the Times. The newspaper says this makes up 11% of the almost 400,000 homes built between 2022 and 2024, an increase from 8% of homes built in flood-prone areas over 2013-22. The Times says: “The insurer…warned that Labour’s drive to build 1.5m new homes could lead to the construction of uninsurable properties, unless the government strengthened planning laws to prevent building in risky areas.” The newspaper adds that the Environment Agency says “climate change could potentially expose one in four properties to flood risk by 2050”. The Guardian carries the story on its frontpage. The Daily Mail also covers the analysis.

MORE ON UK 

• BBC News reports that a court has overturned the Scottish government’s approval of a windfarm that “had previously been rejected” three times. 
• The hard-right, populist Reform party has announced its “frontbench team”, reports the Guardian, with deputy leader Richard Tice given the “combined brief of business, trade and energy”. The newspaper says: “Tice, a longtime sceptic of net-zero policy, pledged to end what he called the ‘madness’ of clean and renewable energy, to focus instead on offshore oil and gas and fracking.” The Independent says that Robert Jenrick, the party’s new Treasury spokesperson, is “set to declare that net-zero efforts have become a ‘distraction’ for the Bank of England”. 
• Analysis finds that UK renewable electricity is set to be the “clear economic winner” over fossil gas before the end of this decade, reports BusinessGreen.
• A report from the right-leaning thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs has warned against the ban on new North Sea oil and gas licences, reports the Daily Express. The Daily Telegraph also covers the report. 
• A “leading energy consultancy” says the UK will miss net-zero targets unless it spends an “extra £75bn on renewables”, reports the Daily Telegraph. 
• Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has labelled plans for a £40bn restoration of the Houses of Parliament as a way to turn Westminster into a “net-zero Dubai hotel”, says the Daily Mail. 

Demand for “green consumption” was “strong” during the first two days of the Spring Festival holiday, state broadcaster CCTV reports, citing data released by China’s commerce ministry. This was largely driven by the trade-in programme, which saw 607,000 vehicles replaced by 16 February, it adds. [The trade-in programme subsidises purchases of new electric vehicles (EVs) if the driver trades in their old car.] The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily publishes an article saying China’s EV charging infrastructure “weaves a dense network for low-carbon travel”, writing that low-carbon electricity is creating “precision carbon reduction” for urban transportation. Another People’s Daily report says that an “adequate energy supply” ensures a “warm Spring Festival”, with the country having strengthened its energy security system.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s Belt and Road Initiative is “adapting”, not “in retreat”, argues Bloomberg columnist Karishma Vaswani, in part due to “increasingly concentrated” investment in clean-energy technologies.
• Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership executive director Eliot Whittington writes in Climate Home News that, while the US has “chosen slow innovation and investment in the clean economy”, China is “pursuing the industries of the future”.
• China’s “recognition” as the world’s first “electrostate” offers a “model for the global green energy transition”, says People’s Daily in an article under the byline He Yin, indicating that the article represents the views of party leadership on foreign policy.

India’s solar manufacturing industry could be “becoming a victim of its own success”, reports Bloomberg. Since 2020, a government-led push to increase domestic solar production has led to a “13-fold jump in capacity” outpacing domestic demand, it reports. According to Avinash Hiranandani, managing director at RenewSys India, capacity utilisation at the country’s module-assembly plants “has shrunk to around 40% from more than 70%” in 2022-23. Hiranandani is quoted by Bloomberg as saying: “This is not a slowdown. It’s a structural glut.” Business Standard reports that India has invested “over $13bn to ramp up capacity creation” in two flagship distributed solar schemes: rooftop solar and solar agricultural pump sets, adding 35GW of capacity in 15 months. Reuters, meanwhile, reports that prime minister Modi’s rooftop solar push “is falling short of targets despite heavy subsidies”. Shreya Jai, lead energy analyst at thinktank Climate Trends, tells the newswire: “Banks’ reluctance to lend and states’ hesitance to promote the scheme could derail India’s efforts to transition away from coal.” 

MORE ON INDIA

• The country’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar mega-infrastructure project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, Mongabay reports. A Times of India opinion article argues that the marine ecosystem is “already under stress from climate change” and dredging it will “only intensify these pressures”. 
• India and France have announced a “joint declaration of intent” to cooperate on critical minerals, reports newswire ANI. 
• Urban “heat could cut India’s GDP by 2.5%”, banks and industry leaders warned at Mumbai Climate Week yesterday, reports Down to Earth. 
• India is “seeking new steel export markets” in the Middle East and Asia to “offset the impact” of the EU’s carbon tax, an unnamed government source tells Reuters.

The Daily Telegraph’s international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes that a scientific paper predicting that “we will have our first taste of a 1.7C world as soon as next year” is a “shock big enough to intrude on everybody’s consciousness”. In a wider commentary on climate science and politics, he notes: “The warnings of climate scientists have been vindicated over the decades. The last three years have jolted even the most cautious, smashing records faster than models had predicted. A string of events have been ‘outside the expected envelope’ from the melting of the Antarctic ice shelf to marine heatwaves in the North Atlantic.” He adds that the Trump administration’s repeal of the endangerment finding and other moves last week will “surely go down as one of the most astonishing episodes in the long sorry saga of human folly”. 

MORE COMMENT 

• Felix Wertli, the Swiss ambassador for the environment, writes in Climate Home News about the “six key elements” needed in a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. 
• The Financial Times Lex column says that Europe’s emissions trading system “has been a success so far, but the next phase will be harder to pull off”. 
• An Irish Independent editorial says Ireland’s “tardiness in addressing critical infrastructure projects, climate change and inadequate weather alerts is having serious consequences for communities”. 
• Ian Johnston, comment editor at the Scotsman, writes that “climate change is a growing threat to the UK’s ability to feed itself”. 
• The Daily Telegraph international economics editor Hans van Leeuwen writes: “Crippling energy prices show folly of [UK energy secretary Ed] Miliband’s California deal.”

BBC China correspondent Laura Bicker explores how China, the “world’s biggest carbon emitter”, is “at the helm of a renewables revolution” and becoming a “green superpower”. In an interactive feature, she discusses how “Beijing’s determination to turn China into a renewables superpower is now evident across its vast landscapes”. She says: “In Gansu and Xinjiang, rolling hills and open plains have morphed into massive wind and solar bases. Shimmering silicon panels sit underneath turbines, capable of generating enough electricity to power tens of millions of homes.” The article looks at solar and wind expansion, the rapid pace of the renewables transition and impacts on some communities. It also cites analysis published by Carbon Brief showing that China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for 21 months.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Orla Dwyer, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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