Daily Briefing: UK’s ‘radical’ energy plans | India ‘seeks $220bn’ | Africa’s COP31 agenda

29.10.26

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News

‘Radical reform’: Chancellor announces major shake-up of UK clean energy plans

James Murray, BusinessGreen

UK chancellor John Healey has announced a series of “radical reforms” to the energy market in the government’s first budget under prime minister Andy Burnham, with the goal of prioritising lower energy costs, according to BusinessGreen. It adds that this includes “a range of measures designed to remove and curb policy costs that are currently imposed on electricity bills”. At the same time, Healey said the government “remains unshakably committed to net-zero by 2050”, according to the outlet. Politico says Healey “repeatedly pointed to uncertainty stemming from war in the Middle East”, which has sent fossil-fuel prices spiralling.

The Guardian lists key points from the budget, including abolishing standing charges on gas bills for 23m homes and providing 20m households with a £100 energy payment. Bloomberg notes that, alongside efforts to curb household energy bills, the budget includes a plan to cut £1bn from programmes “aimed at making homes cleaner and cheaper to heat”. It notes that the government will also reduce spending on “hydrogen, carbon capture and storage (CCS), Great British Energy and its nuclear arm”. The Times says the government is “diverting funding from green investment schemes to pay for Britain’s military build-up, to help first-time buyers onto the housing ladder and to subsidise bus fares”.

The Scotsman reports on funding for the Acorn CCS project in Scotland being “repurposed” to help pay for defence investment. The Times reports that the flagship scheme “is in doubt”, as the budget documents suggest £200m in government funding has been removed, although the newspaper notes that “insiders insisted that the £200m promised last year was separate to the saving of the same amount referenced in the spending plans”. [Carbon Brief has a breakdown of the budget’s key details relating to climate and energy.]

MORE ON UK

BusinessGreen reports that the government has granted development consent for “what is set to be the joint largest solar farm in the UK”.
The Independent explains how “households could get access to free or cheap loans to install solar panels”, via the newly launched warm homes plan.
The Guardian: “Angry Labour MPs urge leadership not to overrule energy secretary on Rosebank.”

India seeks $220bn clean energy push to meet 2030 target

Sethuraman N R, Reuters

India will need around $220bn in clean-energy investment over the next three years in order to meet its target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, according to a senior official quoted by Reuters. Santosh Kumar Sarangi, the top official at the federal clean energy ministry, told a press briefing that India attracted about $64bn of private investment into the clean-energy sector between 2024 and 2026, including $6.2bn in foreign investment. The Hindu says the investment would cover generation, transmission and manufacturing of “green technologies”, with the largest portion – $70-75bn – for solar power. It adds that Sarangi also said that the government “recognises the need” to roll out battery storage.

Nepal disaster has sounded a climate alarm, China minister warns

Lili Pike, Bloomberg

Huang Runqiu, the head of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), has “pointed to August’s deadly glacial collapse and flooding in Nepal as an urgent warning about the accelerating risks of climate change”, reports Bloomberg. Huang made the remark at a summit in Hong Kong, saying that climate change is not a “potential danger”, but a “real risk facing humanity today”, adds the outlet. He also highlighted China’s efforts to support global energy transitions and lower emissions through “green technology” exports, the outlet continues.

MORE ON CHINA

Benjamin Gallezot, France’s top envoy for strategic metals, says rare-earths diversification from China is possible “within three to five years”, reports Reuters.
Global Times: “China urges Germany, EU to be objective, rational after Merz’s claim of ‘unhealthy’ dependence.” Senior Chinese official Li Hongzhong said China and the EU can “find mutually beneficial solutions” to address their trade relations during a meeting with an EU trade delegation, reports Xinhua.
Thailand’s EV imports surged 138% from a year earlier to $421m in September, with China “supplying almost 99% of the total”, reports Bloomberg.
A Securities Times article says “new energy” is shifting its focus from “installing more capacity” to “providing reliable power” during the 15th “five-year plan” period.
China’s supreme court has highlighted the need to “make green development a key consideration in resolving disputes” related to the belt and road initiative, reports China Daily.

US data centres could undo 15 years of declines in power emissions

Eric Roston, Olivia Raimonde and Zahra Hirji, Bloomberg

The surge in construction of gas-fired power plants to run AI data centres is “set to undo 15 years’ worth of greenhouse gas reductions from US electricity generation”, according to an internal analysis by the Sierra Club, covered “exclusively” by Bloomberg. The analysis suggests that, with planned AI projects factored in, the US electricity sector would emit 2.1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2030 – roughly a 42% increase on 2025 levels, according to the outlet. It adds that most of the new emissions “would come from sources that are not directly linked to the grid, often built by tech companies to avoid the long wait for a connection”. However, the article adds that there is uncertainty, noting that “many projects could be delayed or canceled”.

MORE ON US

King tides, driven by a “super El Niño”, have inundated parts of both US coasts, flooding communities in California, Florida and the Carolinas, according to the Associated Press.
CNBC: “Trump methane policy rollback may have minimal impact on crude prices, EPA says.”
Bloomberg reports that, “after a crackdown on wind projects, the White House is now also letting a select few through to pressure Democrats into supporting a sweeping permitting bill”.
Los Angeles city council has approved a plan to end oil drilling and pumping within city limits, following a years-long battle, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Inside Climate News reports that, with the mid-term elections approaching in the US, activists view them as “crucial for curbing Trump’s fossil fuel agenda and building a foundation for renewed action”.

Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight

Matteo Civillini, Climate Home News

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN) has asked the UN to open a formal negotiating space at COP31 for “contentious talks” on adaptation finance and trade, potentially “lining up a potential fight over the agenda”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet says AGN has sent a letter to UN climate chief Simon Stiell requesting three additional agenda items, namely tripling adaptation finance, trade and climate change, and the financing arrangements of the Green Climate Fund. While nations agreed last year on a new target to “at least triple” finance for climate adaptation, there is currently no space in the COP31 agenda to discuss the details of how this goal works, the article notes. It adds that developed countries are “likely to resist” the AGN request on adaptation finance, arguing that it comes under existing climate-finance agreements.

MORE ON COP31

Bloomberg reports that EU climate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, has “ruled out” new climate finance pledges at COP31.
COP31 host Turkey has launched a pledge that says artificial intelligence can help tackle climate change, “even as data centres boost fossil-fuel pollution”, according to Bloomberg.
An article by Climate Home News editor Megan Rowling highlights the need to “start talking about just transition finance” at COP31.

Comment

UK: Healey’s autumn budget kicks off the gas doom loop

Lex, Financial Times

There is extensive UK media commentary on the Labour government’s new budget, with the Financial Times’ Lex column welcoming the elimination of the gas standing charge as a good way to “accelerate households’ move towards alternatives such as heat pumps”. It adds that “just the fact that the UK has set this slow-mo doom loop in motion is good news for an energy transition that in many ways appears to have stalled”.

Meanwhile, a Financial Times editorial says the budget “ducks the hard choices”, although it welcomes “plans to accelerate grid connections”. A Guardian editorial is more positive, although it warns against the government relying on revenues from the Rosebank oilfield before it has been approved. A Daily Mirror editorial says the £100 payments to ease the energy bills of 20m households will “provide much-needed relief”. An Independent editorial highlights the “welcome moves” to immediately curb energy bills, including the “abolition of green levies and unfair standing charges on gas bills”. A Times editorial welcomes the government’s “data centre covenant” and highlights the decision to scrap the hydrogen levy as “a more pragmatic approach to energy”. The Sun’s editorial is critical, although it praises the government’s decision to continue the long-running fuel duty freeze. An editorial in the Daily Mail says the efforts to reduce energy bills come with a “sting in the tail”, as some will now be paid out of general taxation instead.

Various high-profile opposition politicians have weighed in on the Labour budget. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch writes in the climate-sceptic Sun that Labour has already made “energy more expensive with net-zero policies” and says her government would cut spending. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claims in the Daily Telegraph that a Reform government would “abolish net-zero targets” and “cut £250 off energy bills in our first 100 days” – arguing that Healey’s £100 “giveaway” will “barely touch the sides”. Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick writes in the Daily Express that they “would give £1,300 back to the average household” partly paid for by cutting foreign aid and “mad net-zero schemes”. Climate-sceptic peer David Frost writes in the Daily Telegraph that Labour did not address the “real causes of rising energy bills”, because this would “require Labour to interrogate its net-zero policy”. [In fact, wholesale costs – driven by gas – are responsible for 90% of the rise in UK energy bills since 2020, according to Carbon Brief analysis.]

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, writes that the “proposed changes to energy markets might turn out to be quite significant”. In the Times, columnist Fraser Nelson describes the focus on clean-energy projects lowering bills as a “volte-face from Ed Miliband’s era”.

MORE COMMENT

Fiona Harvey, environment editor at the Guardian, writes a comment piece reflecting on the 20-year anniversary of the Stern report, which warned of economic threat posed by climate change.
A comment piece in the Guardian by film director Adam McKay and Philip Eubanks, executive director of Climate Emergency Fund, focuses on the twin threats of climate change and artificial intelligence.

Research

“Unprecedented” sea ice loss since 2016 has triggered the “densification and salinification” of Antarctic Intermediate Water in the Southern Ocean | Nature Climate Change
Vegetation variability is “increasingly controlled” by atmospheric dryness | Nature Geoscience
Climate projections indicate that higher levels of warming will lead to “substantial increases” in hot-wet compound extreme risk in east Asia | Weather and Climate Extremes