China’s leader is expected to put the seal later today on its contribution to what will be the first UK nuclear power plant to be built in a generation, says the BBC: “The plant could be opened by 2025 at Hinkley Point, in Somerset, with China likely to cover about 30% of the cost…Two other nuclear power stations, at Sizewell in Suffolk, and Bradwell in Essex, could follow as part of the deal with China.” The Telegraph focuses on the comments of Andrea Leadsom, a Tory energy minister, who appeared before the energy select committee yesterday. She said that nuclear power stations are “affordable for consumers”, despite being “very expensive” to build. The Timessays the deal is “confirmed”. The Telegraph publishes an accompanying Hinkley Point timeline. Meanwhile,EnergyDesk has done some analysis which shows that a “new fleet of three nuclear power stations will cost the average bill-payer more than £30 a year – a total subsidy of £2.6bn per year”.

Energy minister Andrea Leadsom has told MPs she remains “open-minded” about plans to slash subsidies for solar power in order to protect consumer bills, but told MPs on Tuesday that “very expensive” nuclear power stations were nonetheless “affordable for customers”. She said changes were needed to avoid a projected overspend and that the government remained committed to cutting carbon emissions: “It is simply not the case the government is moving away from green,” she said, noting £42bn of renewable energy investment since 2010. Angus MacNeil, the SNP chair of the ECC committee, said: “There is a feeling about that this government is miserly when it comes to renewables but profligate when it comes to nuclear. Is there one rule for renewables and one for nuclear?” BusinessGreen live-blogged Leadsom’s appearance.

Prospects for a UN climate deal in Paris in December have brightened after an acrimonious start to the final preparatory talks in Germany, says France. Foreign minister Laurent Fabius said there was a growing consensus that national pledges for curbing greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020, the building blocks of a deal in Paris, should be reviewed and toughened every five years. “The climate … is positive” for a deal in Paris, despite acrimony between many nations on Monday over a pared-down draft agreement for Paris that had cut out many governments’ core demands, he told a news conference in Bonn. Climate Home also reported from Bonn, noting the reaction of Alix Mazounie from the Climate Action Network to the early tensions: “The storm was useful – we need predictable and adequate finance for developing countries.” Meanwhile, the Hill reported that in Washington DC, Todd Stern, the US’s chief climate negotiator, faced questions in the Senate from the foreign relations committee subpanel.

The Guardian’s US environment correspondent says it would be a mistake to think that Justin Trudeau, Canada’s new prime minister, would automatically herald a U-turn on the nation’s regressive attitude to climate change under his predecessor, Stephen Harper. “Those hoping for a U-turn…are in for a reality check,” says Goldenberg. “It would be a mistake to see Trudeau or the Liberals as climate champions. In his victory speech on Monday, there was no mention of climate change, and he was criticised for being vague on the issue during campaigning.” However, Trudeau has “Trudeau committed to take part in the Paris climate conference at the end of the year, and to convene a meeting of provincial leaders within 90 days to come up with a plan to fight climate change”. However, Climate Home and InsideClimateNews are more optimistic about the influence of Trudeau on international climate politics ahead of the Paris COP.

Most advanced and emerging economies are on a trajectory that would see them fall short of mitigation goals pledged in their INDCs, suggesting they require stronger policies, says the OECD in a new report. It analysed its 34 member nations, plus Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and South Africa, and the EU bloc, which together account for more than 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It found that despite nearly all decreasing their emissions intensities, their policies to combat climate change are still not working fast enough to achieve zero net carbon emissions by the end of the century.

Greenhouse gas emissions in Europe have plunged to the lowest level ever recorded after the EU’s member states reported an estimated 23% drop in emissions between 1990 and 2014, according to the European Environment Agency. The bloc has now overshot its target for 2020 of cutting emissions by one-fifth – at the same time that its economy grew by 46%, according to the EU’s climate chief, Miguel Arias Canete. The new figures show that eight countries are on track to miss their binding renewable energy targets for 2020 – including the UK, Ireland and Spain. The same number of states looks set to botch a 20% improvement in energy efficiency performance, with Germany, France and the Netherlands all underperforming. France, the host of next month’s climate summit, is predicted to miss both targets. Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg are also predicted to flunk the 2020 emissions target. Britain, however, has cut emissions 35% since 1990, according to the EEA figures, which may be revised pending official data submissions to the UN in 2016.

The FT reports that energy companies have warned that 15 “illogical” policy changes introduced by the new Conservative government since May have made some renewable power sector projects “uninvestable” — causing them to cancel billions of pounds worth of investment. RWE Innogy — the renewable energy unit of Germany’s RWE Group — has scrapped nine onshore wind projects in England in the past four months, halting investments of more than £250m. Mike Parker, head of onshore wind at RWE Innogy UK, says: “Investors are worried now about investing in the whole UK energy market, it’s not even just in the renewables space.” The FT says that “several large energy groups, including EDF and Vattenfall, have announced similar cancellations”.

Wright says that the main threats to the UK’s steel industry comes from a strong pound, a reduction in Chinese demand and high energy costs: “In reality, there is little that can be done about the first two. But British steelmakers pay nearly twice as much for their electricity as their German and French rivals. And that’s many multiples higher than in China, which is somewhat less concerned about how much carbon dioxide it produces, and the US, which enjoys an abundance of cheap shale gas. Dealing with this would require the UK government to row back on the green policies that slowly ratcheted up energy bills for British businesses.

Barkham, a Guardian feature writer and author of natural history books, writes a long personal account of his experience of installing solar panels on his roof. “Like many people, I was persuaded to put up solar PV not by promises of a fat cheque from the government but by meeting someone who’d had panels fitted and sung their praises.” He then walks us through his experience before moving on to the subsidy cuts facing the solar industry in the UK. By coincidence, the Daily Mail has published it’s own version of one of its journalists writing about installing solar panels on his roof.

Black, the director of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit and a former BBC environment correspondent, looks at the often unforgotten subject of energy efficiency: “It won’t come in December – but within the climate change community, the hope is that a Paris deal will accelerate investments in low-carbon stuff, which will then make it easier for governments to tighten the deal, and so on.”

A new paper examining several different metrics of drought, including temperature, rainfall and soil moisture depletion, finds that climate change has made agricultural drought in California less likely. Based on an analysis of how different land surfaces have responded to human-induced forcing since the late 19th century, the authors conclude that the current severe impacts have “not been substantially caused by long-term climate changes”.

Scientists have found clear signs that trees in the semi-arid forests of the north eastern Tibetan plateau are experiencing drought stress as a result of climate change, including missing tree rings and higher death rates in recent decades. They warn that a recent drought episode in the region may be a hint of things to come over a larger part of Inner Asia.