Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, former vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "An overemphasis on geoengineering to regulate global warming could put the planet on a riskier trajectory."
If the world were to warm more than 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial times, it would mean significantly more heat waves, extreme precipitation and drought than if it stayed below that threshold. Most of these impacts will leave irreversible marks on ecology and people, said Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, former vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's largest collective of climate experts. An overemphasis on geoengineering to regulate global warming could put the planet on a higher-risk trajectory, he said in an email interview before the IPCC's summary report was released on Monday. Ypersele is a Belgian climatologist attending the IPCC meeting in Interlaken, Switzerland, which is running overtime.

A New York Times op-ed called the fact that poorer countries are contributing little to climate change but are already feeling its greatest effects "one of the great injustices of this era." It says: “The World Bank and the donor countries that control it can do more to address this generational challenge. For the World Bank and other multilateral lending institutions to be able to fulfill their purpose in the 21st century, leaders must figure out how to raise and use the vast amounts of capital that will be needed in the coming years to help countries adapt to and mitigate the effects of a changing climate. For many years, climate financing has taken a backseat to the bank's dual goals of reducing extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Today, it is an integral part of achieving these goals."

Editorial, New York Times, Carbon Brief

European solar companies say restrictions on Chinese imports included in the EU's proposed net zero industry law could make the transition to net zero more difficult, the FT reports. The law obliges the authorities to consider reducing the value of tenders for renewable energy projects if the companies come from a single country that has more than 65 % of the EU market share of the product. [The rule has been interpreted as "anti-China", as the country currently supplies almost all of Europe's solar PV module imports.] Dries Acke, director of policy at industry lobby group SolarPower Europe, told the FT: "If we don't want to risk a slowdown in deployment solar power, we need a bigger carrot, especially when it comes to financing solar power plants in Europe." Bloomberg also reports on the reaction to the Net Zero Industry bill, noting that "critics have called the approach more reminiscent of a planned economy than a free market response ". David Fickling's opinion piece for Bloomberg describes it as "green protectionism [that] will worsen its energy security". DownToEarth India reports that the outcome for the Global South is still uncertain. Politico reports that France is still pushing for all nuclear technologies to be on the list of technologies subject to special conditions set out in the Net Zero Industry law, despite losing the battle for that option before the proposal was made public. (See Carbon Brief's full explanatory article on the Net Zero Industry Act and how it relates to the EU's Green Deal industrial plan). Elsewhere, Reuters reports that the EU is working on a system to encourage companies to buy gas together.

Yuan Yang, Alice Hancock and Laura Pitel, Financial Times, Carbon Brief

The publication of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been "delayed" by "the fight between rich and developing countries over emission targets and financial aid to vulnerable countries", reports the Associated Press. The final report of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Cycle (AR6) is a synthesis that brings together the findings of the August 2021 Climate Science Report, the February 2022 Climate Impacts Report and the April 2022 How to Address Climate Change Report, as well as previous "special reports". The summary report was supposed to be approved on Friday after a week-long approval meeting of the governments, reports the AP agency. The report said: "The deadline was repeatedly extended as representatives of major countries such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, as well as the US and the European Union, argued over the weekend over the wording of key phrases in the text... An unusual process for countries to sign a scientific report, is to ensure that governments accept its conclusions as an authoritative recommendation on which to base their actions." According to Carbon Brief magazine, the report was approved on Sunday evening and is to be published today at 1:00 p.m. CET. (A detailed overview of the AR6 summary report will be published by Carbon Brief later this week). Politico reports that the delay in the release of the report is related to a "strike" by some scientists. Ahead of the report, the Guardian speaks to Samoa's prime minister, who calls on the world to take action. Fiame Naomi Mata'afa tells the Guardian: “We are all affected, but the degree of impact depends on the specific circumstances of the countries. So our low-lying atoll countries, it's right there, we live with it.” The Guardian also provides an explanation of what the AR6 summary report is and why it's important.

Carbon Brief covers all the details of the Green Deal industrial plan proposed by the European Commission. The new set of proposed legislation is widely interpreted as the EU's response to the US's anti-inflation law.

Daisy Dunne and Josh Gabbatiss, Carbon Brief

The number of great works of art about climate change could be comfortably counted on one hand of the soon-to-be-extinct orangutan. As with all the most pressing issues of our time, the process of turning grim reality into impressive art is too much alchemy. The product thus becomes either sentimental and sensational, or indigestible in its overcooked virtue. Extrapolations , the big-budget AppleTV+ anthology about a world on the brink of destruction, achieves something quite extraordinary: it manages to be both sentimental and preachy.

The story begins in 2037, when the Middle East is plagued by fires and the sea level threatens low-lying cities. Governments are trying to agree on new climate agreements (we see negotiators at COP42 in Tel Aviv), and the key to them could be tech genius Nick Bilton (Kit Harington; not good for my SEO) and his company Alpha. Their patents on desalination technology would give the parched Earth some respite - but what conditions will be placed on the release of this lucrative invention? Everything could be hidden in metals and minerals under the melting Arctic ice (Apple knows a lot about batteries after all).

Extrapolation creator Scott Z. Burns is best known as the screenwriter of Steven Soderbergh's 2011 film Contagion, which gained new attention during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Extrapolations, Burns addresses the climate crisis, which is somewhat easier to predict. The story arc takes place over the course of 33 years, at the beginning of which people are saying generally sensible things like, "There's no negotiating with fire, the floor, or famine!" But the series quickly degenerates into sci-fi when the multinational cooperation on carbon neutrality falters to a man murdered by a vengeful walrus, not to mention technology that instantly translates a whale's song into perfect English. "Now it becomes another," hums the gnomic Meryl Streep-voiced humpback whale, "until we fall back and give back what we took."

US President Joe Biden's approval of ConocoPhillips' $8 billion plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from federal lands in Alaska "came with a thud of betrayal and an air of inevitability," says David Wallace-Wells. Wallace-Wells writes in her New York Times newsletter: "On the campaign trail, Biden promised 'no more drilling on federal lands, period.' Dot, dot, dot”. But for all the talk of the renewable energy boom and the green transition and all the money pouring into it, there has been little concerted effort, at least in the US, to actually reduce our wasteful use of what is actually poisoning the climate: fossil fuels.” He asks “how big a carbon bomb” is the Willow project, noting: “The honest answer is that it's not zero, but it's not catastrophically big in itself. If the project goes ahead and produces oil as predicted, it is expected to produce an extra 9.2 million metric tonnes of CO2 each year – roughly the equivalent of two new coal-fired power plants added to our fleet or 2 million petrol cars added to the road . That's bad—any amount of additional carbon promises to push the world even further outside the temperature envelope that has so far bounded and helped cultivate the entire history of human civilization... And yet 9 million metric tons represents only about two-tenths of 1 % of current US emissions.” But , he continues, "the same logic could be used to justify any particular fossil fuel project." Such is "the nature of the problem, which permeates almost every aspect of industrial and post-industrial civilization: The scale of the challenge seems to both urge urgency and recommend a kind of indifference." He concludes: "A line has to be drawn somewhere, and the Biden administration keeps crossing it."

David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times, Carbon Brief

China has asked the European Union to "justify its new border carbon tax" at the World Trade Organization, "suggesting it may challenge the law at the trade court in Geneva," reports the South China Morning Post. It adds that Beijing's WTO envoy "suggested using the Trade and Environment Committee for multilateral negotiations" on "contentious environmental measures", starting with the EU's Carbon Boundary Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which China "insists on". that it "does not comply with global trade rules". The Hong Kong-based newspaper also notes a Tsinghua University paper published in 2021 that said "China, as the world's largest producer of industrial raw materials such as cement and steel, would be most affected by EU legislation." However, the article points to a China Dialogue report stating that "the first wave of levies would only apply to 2 % of China's EU exports".

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that "a surge in wind power generation in China helped curb coal burning earlier in the year, even as the government struggled to jump-start the economy after abandoning Covid Zero." It said wind turbines produced 134 TWh (terawatt hours) of electricity in January and February, a "30 % jump" from a year earlier. Along with "growing" solar power production, new generation from renewable sources "was able to more than cover the 2.3 percent increase in electricity demand in two months," the portal points out, adding that it "allowed thermal plant operators to reduce operations, emissions from the world's most polluting industry have been reduced". State news portal Xinhua writes that "renewables are undoubtedly winning" as the country is "well on its way to achieving its goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2030," citing Lei Yang, a professor at Peking University's Institute of Energy. Yang adds, "For China, developing its own renewable energy capacity is helpful in achieving energy security... The energy transition is consistent with long-term energy security." Radio Free Asia, a US-funded news service, reports that "China's renewed reliance on coal threatens the world's climate ambitions". China Daily reports a commentary by Lin Boqiang, a researcher at the Tan Kah Kee Innovation Laboratory and dean of the China Institute for Energy Policy Studies at Xiamen University. He writes: "For China to achieve its 'dual carbon' goals, in the coming decades it will build a new energy system dominated by wind and solar power sources and phase out fossil fuels (including coal)." He adds: "A phase-out would require replacing traditional energy sources with renewable energy sources. For now, China's low-carbon transformation must take into account energy costs and energy security, making it impossible for the country to move away from coal in the short to medium term." He concludes: "Even if China reaches its peak carbon emissions in 2030, coal-fired power plants will continue to provide the vast majority of electricity to drive China's economic growth, and plans to "phase out" coal-fired power generation capacity will be hotly debated. The key lies in recognizing the role of coal power as a 'stabilizer' and 'ballast stone' to secure electricity supplies and progress the transition to a low-carbon economy at relatively lower costs."

Separately, coverage of China's annual "Two Sessions," a major political gathering in Beijing that ended on March 13, continues. An article published in China Dialogue magazine said lawmakers and political advisers "offered thousands of proposals and suggestions, including many on climate and energy." It added that Qian Feng of the Chinese Academy of Technology suggested the government "issue regulations on carbon emissions trading", saying the current national carbon market has "a weak emission monitoring system for enterprises and lacks an effective pricing mechanism". Lu Xiulu, director of Guangdong Province's Department of Ecology and Environment, suggested that "carbon budgeting pilot projects be carried out at the provincial and municipal levels," the article continued. Although these proposals are "lively debated", the article points out, it is "difficult to say whether and how they will be adopted and eventually become policy". China Daily reports that during the meeting, the policy adviser "called for more carbon reduction projects" including "carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) to be included in China's certified emission reduction program to boost the country's efforts to offset with climate change".

Finally, the Reuters agency writes that the recovery of the Chinese economy "seems to be on the right track, but it is unevenly distributed in individual sectors, which is likely to lead to a similar development in the case of imports of major commodities." Industrial production "increased by 2.4 %" in the first two months of 2023 compared to the same period last year, the news portal adds.

Finbarr Bermingham, South China Morning Post, Carbon Brief

Yesterday, the European Commission unveiled its Net Zero Industry Act, which Politico describes as "a long-awaited proposal aimed at supporting green industries in Europe." He explains: “The proposed regulation aims to ensure that at least 40 % of the block's cleantech demand is produced domestically by 2030. The proposal sets targets for technologies that are considered necessary to decarbonise the bloc's economy, which is to prevent the EU from deepening its dependence on third countries such as China." Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told journalists yesterday: "If we want to achieve climate neutrality as we plan by 2050, and if you want to take advantage of all the opportunities this industrial revolution brings and head off the challenges…we're going to need a massive expansion of cleantech manufacturing." were trying to resolve the dispute over whether to include nuclear energy'. He continues: “The final text is ambiguous. Nuclear energy is not included in the list of 'strategic zero net worth technologies'... which can benefit from faster permitting and easier access to financing. Elsewhere in the text, however, the formal definition of net-zero technologies includes "advanced technologies for generating energy from nuclear processes with minimal waste from the fuel cycle" and "small modular reactors". Reuters reports that yesterday seven EU states - including Germany, Spain and Denmark - "stepped up their opposition to France's efforts to include nuclear power in the EU's renewable energy targets".
In a separate article, Politico addresses "five things to know" about the Net Zero Industries Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act, which aims to "strengthen the supply chain." It states that under the Zero Industry Law, “projects that receive the special status of 'strategic project' and have an annual output of more than 1 gigawatt will have reduced permit periods of one year; projects below this level will have the green light within nine months”. But the Financial Times reports that industry leaders have warned that the new plans will fail if they are not backed by more money. For example, the article quotes Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope, as saying, "We simply don't have enough factories and infrastructure today to build all the wind power Europe wants." In another article, Politico comments on "Brussels' fight against [the US president's] reforms Biden". It says: "Brussels officials are increasingly irritated that businesses are demanding more state money and threatening to leave Europe and move to America if they don't get it." In a "briefing" on the Commission's proposals, Reuters reports, that they also contain "plans to support the production of clean hydrogen using an EU-funded subsidy system".
Meanwhile, Politico reports that "the European Parliament doesn't like the look of Germany's proposed backroom deal with Brussels to save the internal combustion engine." Citing two parliament officials, Politico reports that Roberta Metsola, the parliament's speaker, will write to EU capitals to "respect" the deal agreed last year to effectively ban the sale of new polluting cars and vans by 2035. . According to the article, the intervention was agreed yesterday in response to Germany - along with Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic - threatening to "ruin the deal" by insisting that it be allowed after 2035 using vehicles powered only by synthetic fuels made from captured CO2 and hydrogen. (See yesterday's Daily Briefing for more.) Germany's maneuvers risk a wider "contagion" of climate laws, one EU diplomat told the Financial Times, with smaller countries following Berlin's lead and "[lowering] ambition on other things".
Finally, Reuters reports that European Union countries agreed yesterday to "try to reduce the number of farms covered by proposed rules to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from livestock." This happened "despite criticism from some member states" - including Bulgaria, Germany, Italy and Poland, the news portal writes.

Federica Di Sario, Politico, "Carbon Brief"

In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its long-awaited report on the "physical science basis" of climate change. The report concluded that climate change is "unequivocally" human-caused and is already affecting all regions of our planet. These findings were reported worldwide, attracting international attention. The mammoth 2,500-page document compiles a vast body of peer-reviewed literature and provides the most up-to-date summary of climate science ever published. Every statement in the report is supported by authoritative sources.

In total, the report boasts an incredible 13,500 citations.

Our analysis examines which citations were included in the report and reveals a surprisingly wide and diverse range of topics. However, it also shows that the report is significantly dominated by citations from the countries of the Global North and are commonly found behind the payment gateway. We found that 99.95 % of cited references were written in English, and three-quarters of all literature cited in the report had at least one author based in the US or UK.

When and where? The IPCC's report on climate science – known as the Working Group I (WG1) report – is the first part of a three-part Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Hundreds of scientists spent years reviewing the existing literature on climate change to produce this report, which will form the cornerstone of climate science for years to come. This report was followed by two more parts on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability due to climate change and climate change mitigation, which were issued in February and in March 2022. AR6 will be concluded with a summary report to be published next week. The AR6 WG1 report is an update of the Fifth Assessment Cycle (AR5) WG1 report that was published in 2013. The authors of the new report were asked to focus on providing an update since the last cycle, explaining progress in climate science, how the credibility of the findings has changed or strengthened and what new themes have emerged since AR5.

We found that 98.5 % citations in the AR6 WG1 report were published since 2000, and 85 % of those were published after AR5 was released in 2013. The following chart shows how many citations were published each year from 2000-21.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

dr. Sarah Connors and Felix Chavelli, Carbon Brief

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) "is not likely to have a 'substantial' impact on the availability of capital for climate-related technologies, Mark Carney, the United Nations' special envoy for climate action and finance, said on Wednesday," Reuters reports. Elsewhere, Semafor reports on the collapse under the headline: "How the collapse of SVB harms the energy transition". The article states: “It was the sixth largest funder of renewable energy projects in the US in 2022, with $1.2 billion, and plans to offer $5 billion in funding to all kinds of climate-related businesses by 2027.” Financial Times reporter "moral money" "addresses the question of whether the sustainability movement is to blame for the collapse of SVB". It reads: “Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock, told Moral Money that he sees Republican claims linking SVB's failure to sustainability as simply feeding into the broader politicization of ESG.” Quartz asks: “Silicon Valley Bank Helped Fund China's Innovation Economy. What's next?'

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) "is not likely to have a 'substantial' impact on the availability of capital for climate-related technologies, Mark Carney, the United Nations' special envoy for climate action and finance, said on Wednesday," Reuters reports. Elsewhere, Semafor reports on the collapse under the headline: "How the collapse of SVB harms the energy transition". The article states: “It was the sixth largest funder of renewable energy projects in the US in 2022, with $1.2 billion, and plans to offer $5 billion in funding to all kinds of climate-related businesses by 2027.” Financial Times reporter "moral money" "addresses the question of whether the sustainability movement is to blame for the collapse of SVB". It reads: “Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock, told Moral Money that he sees Republican claims linking SVB's failure to sustainability as simply feeding into the broader politicization of ESG.” Quartz asks: “Silicon Valley Bank Helped Fund China's Innovation Economy. What's next?'

Carbon Brief, Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Virginia Furness, Reuters

According to the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), greenhouse gas emissions in Germany fell by 1.9 % in 2022, Reuters reports. According to the agency, which adds that the reduction to 40 % below 1990 levels was due to higher renewable energy production and lower energy demand, emissions will need to fall by 6 % per year to meet the country's 2030 target. Deutsche Welle it reports this data under the headline: "Germany meets 2022 greenhouse gas emissions target". However, it says the energy and transport sectors "still do not contribute sufficiently to reductions". He adds that Germany aims to reduce emissions by 65 % by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Bloomberg leads its coverage with the sentence that German transport emissions rose in 2022 "as the post-pandemic recovery was offset by higher fuel prices, subsidies to railways and a record number of new electric vehicles". It reports that Germany recently "blocked the European Union's plan to phase out internal combustion engines by 2035."
Another Reuters article said greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands fell 9 % to 32 % below 1990 levels "as the energy crisis reduced the use of natural gas in industry and buildings, the Dutch National Statistics Office said on Wednesday."

Markus Wacket and Vera Eckert, Reuters, "Carbon Brief"

Later today, the European Commission "will present the main points of its strategy to ensure that its industry can compete with the US and China in the production of clean technology products and the acquisition of raw materials needed for the green transition", according to Reuters. It said the Commission would publish proposals for the Net Zero Industry Act and the Critical Materials Act as part of its "Green Deal Industrial Plan". The news portal explains: “The EU is setting a target of producing at least 40 % of the clean technology products it needs by 2030, in part by streamlining green project permitting and investment support. The Commission will propose simpler state aid schemes that will allow subsidies to support green technologies with the possibility of providing tax breaks and using existing EU funds." Today's proposals are also brought closer by the Financial Times: "Brussels will introduce restrictions on the import of Chinese green technologies, reduce the number of applicants for public contracts and will make it harder for buyers to access subsidies." He adds: "According to people familiar with the situation, the Commission's trade directorate is concerned that proposed changes to the public procurement rulebook could violate international rules." Bloomberg reports that the EU is "ready to assert its claims in the cleantech race, while trying to resist the US'. The article states: “The proposals, put forward in response to concerns that key industries for the transition to new technologies may flee Europe to the US after a landmark subsidy package, have raised fears of a cleantech arms race. Brussels think tank Bruegel called the bloc's planned response "blatantly protectionist" in a recent report. It added: "The plans still need to be approved by parliament and member states and could be amended before they can be implemented." The output explains that the plans will include eight "strategic net zero" technologies, from solar and wind power to batteries, heat pumps, electrolyzers and carbon capture and storage, but not nuclear power. Politico reports on the fears of some "Brussels bigwigs" that the EU is about to "abandon its free market beliefs to compete with China and the US in the clean energy arms race." Another Politico article reports on today's critical mineral proposals: "Conservationists are spooked by Brussels' plans to increase extraction of critical minerals, but advocates say it's necessary to meet the bloc's environmental goals."
Meanwhile, Reuters reports on ongoing reactions to the Commission's electricity market reform proposals, published on Tuesday: "The European Commission's plans to reorganize the bloc's electricity market have brought relief to some, while disappointing countries that have campaigned for more sweeping reforms , which they say is necessary to protect against volatile fossil fuel prices. The countries' mixed response sets the stage for complex discussions among the 27 EU countries, which must negotiate and approve final reforms with the [European] Parliament." In other EU news, Politico reports that Germany "tried to defuse a growing conflict with the EU by saying in a letter sent to the European Commission on Wednesday proposed changes to legislation relating to green transport, according to an official who saw the letter". It explains: "The intention is to create a loophole for the continued sale of combustion engine cars after 2035 despite EU plans to ban them from this year." The proposed loophole would apply to combustion engines "powered only by e-fuels – synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels made from hydrogen and CO2", the material states. Another Politico article is headlined: "Lobbying Efforts to Save EU Fossil Boilers."

Philip Blenkinsop, Reuters "Carbon Brief"

An editorial in the National newspaper in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) addresses the role of climate change in fueling terrorist activities. "One of the most worrying aspects of climate change is its ubiquity. There is nothing that is not affected by global warming, from the economy and agriculture to migration and disease. The report, published this week, includes another issue where environmental damage exerts its harmful influence – terrorism,” it said. He reflects on Africa's Sahel region, where deaths related to extremist violence accounted for 43 % of the world's total deaths last year and where a new report calls global warming a "threat multiplier". The report continues: “Climate change is exacerbating economic and social problems. Heat waves and water shortages can threaten agriculture, which provides food and employment for millions of people. When this collapses, the salaries that terrorist groups in the Sahel offer their fighters may become an attractive proposition." The article concludes that now that climate change is "at the top of the global agenda" there is an opportunity to examine "how the damage , which it causes, can lead desperate people to the sirens of extremism".

Editorial, The National, 

The European Commission has proposed a "thorough reform" of the electricity market in the EU, which is supposed to help protect citizens from a sharp increase in prices, accelerate the introduction of renewable energy sources and increase the bloc's independence from energy imports from abroad, the Associated Press reports. The plans will now be reviewed by the EU parliament and member states before they become law, a process that will take several months, the agency continued. Bloomberg reports that the proposed changes to the EU's common electricity market are part of a broader EU plan to "strengthen competitiveness while transitioning to a greener economy." According to Reuters, the changes proposed by the commission stopped short of the revision that some countries had hoped for at the height of last year's price spikes. It adds that they are leaving in place the existing system of setting energy prices on European wholesale markets, which the commission says helped prevent energy shortages during last year's energy crisis. However, the news portal added that the plan contained measures to protect customers from short-term price spikes, including preventing suppliers from disconnecting vulnerable consumers who cannot pay their electricity bills. According to the Financial Times, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson has warned Germany against capping electricity costs for industry, which she says would damage the European single market. Instead, she "advocated for alternative proposals from the European Commission to stabilize the market through the use of long-term contracts".
The Financial Times reports that EU commissioners are sparring over plans to include nuclear power in new funding rules aimed at boosting the bloc's low-carbon industries due to be published this week. Nuclear energy was included in an early draft of the bill as a "strategic sector with zero net consumption," meaning that new power plants could receive an expedited permit, the newspaper continued. He adds that according to officials, commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is "pushing for a compromise that would include small modular reactors but not larger nuclear plants."
Other EU news: The European Parliament has finally approved tougher national targets to reduce emissions in some sectors and expand natural ecosystems, such as forests, that absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), Reuters reports. It is part of a major EU climate package that aims to cut emissions by 55 % by 2030 and will be voted on by member states before it becomes law. However, EU countries and lawmakers agreed on the details last year, so these final votes usually pass the laws without changes, the article said. The European Parliament also approved a law aimed at reducing household energy bills and faster disconnection of EU countries from Russian gas, adds another Reuters article.

Associated Press, "Carbon Brief"

Since its establishment in 1988, the IPCC has published six sets of "Assessment Reports". These documents summarize the latest scientific evidence on human-induced climate change and are considered the most authoritative reports on the subject. The IPCC has also produced a series of "special reports" focusing on specific areas of climate change. Carbon Brief analyzed the authors of all six sets of assessment reports, as well as the last five special reports. The data show that women and experts from the Global South have gained greater representation in IPCC reports over time, but are still underrepresented compared to their male and Global North counterparts.

The first IPCC assessment report, published in 1990, had approximately 100 authors. The analysis shows that less than 10 % of these authors were women and less than 20 % came from institutions in the Global South. Not a single woman contributed to the first assessment report of Working Group I on climate science. In contrast, the latest evaluation cycle, whose summary report will be published next week, has a total of more than 700 authors, of which more than 30 %s are women and more than 40 %s are from countries in the Global South. Carbon Brief spoke to a wide range of IPCC authors and experts about their experiences at the organization. Many experts emphasize the time-consuming nature of their work at the IPCC, describing the work as "intense", "stressful" and "unsustainable".

Experts also highlight obstacles they have encountered or seen during their time at the IPCC – including language, gender discrimination, funding issues and cultural barriers. "Strong, dominant, often male voices tend to prevail," the IPCC co-chair tells Carbon Brief. "Unconscious biases are there even when you pick the brightest scientists," another co-chair tells Carbon Brief. But they also tell Carbon Brief about the improvement in diversity and awareness over the past three decades.

The head of the IPCC's Gender Action Team talks to Carbon Brief about progress on gender equality, while members of the IPCC Bureau explain how they take diversity into account when selecting the authors of their reports. In what follows, Carbon Brief summarizes its findings through a series of graphs and maps. It also examines how the IPCC's approach to diversity has evolved since the organization's inception in 1988.

Politico continues to report on the disagreements between France and Germany over proposed new EU green transport legislation. According to the portal, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said France is "ready to 'fight' Germany to save EU green transport legislation, which effectively bans the sale of passenger cars and vans with internal combustion engines from 2035". According to the portal, Germany has allies including Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Separately, he states that "the future of the internal combustion engine is turning into a Franco-German war" as France has Spain on its side. The Reuters agency also reports on disagreements.
Elsewhere, Reuters reports that the EU will today propose a review of European electricity market rules "which aims to expand the use of fixed electricity price contracts to protect consumers from significant price jumps like last year". The measures will protect vulnerable consumers from being cut off by electricity suppliers if they are unable to pay their bills, Reuters writes. The proposal "doesn't represent the revolution that some countries like France and Spain have pushed for, but no more than market conservatives like Germany and the Netherlands have wanted," according to Politico. Bloomberg adds that the plans will include "virtual regional power centers." Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that the EU "does not plan to stockpile metal batteries and other key commodities as part of new measures to secure supplies - a step back from what was previously proposed - after some major manufacturers opposed the move." .

Joshua Posaner, Giorgio Leali and Hans von der Burchard, Politico, 'Carbon Brief'

Greenhouse gases from rotting and otherwise discarded food account for about half of all emissions from the global food system, according to a new study. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), approximately one third (pdf) of all food produced is lost or wasted each year. One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to halve global food waste by 2030 and reduce food losses in production and supply. The study assesses the emissions of food loss and waste at every link in the supply chain – from the moment food is harvested to the moment it ends up in landfill or compost. It found that in 2017 global food waste caused 9.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions (GtCO2e), which is about as much as the combined US and EU emissions in the same year. Along with carbon emissions, this comes at a time when more than 800 million people will be affected by hunger in 2021, according to the UN. A new study published in the journal Nature Food also explores several ways to reduce emissions from food waste, such as cutting meat consumption in half and composting instead of landfilling.

Where does food waste come from?

The global food system produces about a third of total annual greenhouse gas emissions. A new study reports that food waste causes about half of these emissions. Location, socio-economic differences and other factors play a role in the level of food waste emissions around the world. For example, developed countries generally have more advanced and environmentally friendly technologies – which can lead to lower emissions from waste management, the study said.

"Carbon Brief"

The round table organized today by the President of the Slovak Republic Zuzana Čaputová on the current social and economic situation in Slovakia is a good step towards solving energy poverty. This is the opinion of the Slovak Climate Initiative, which appeals for the speedy adoption of the missing definition of energy poverty with the active help of experts from the SAS Prognostic Institute.

"The meeting on energy poverty with the President is a signal for society that it is an important topic. At the same time, as everywhere else, cooperation is key. The first step is good coordination and preparation of an interdepartmental working group composed of experts to transfer the concept into practice. A team of scientists from the Prognostic Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences has been dedicated to the topic and research of energy poverty for a long time. The information they have should be part of the solutions in order to speed up the process of preparing the definition and solutions to energy poverty," said Kateřina Chajdiaková from the Slovak Climate Initiative.

Energy poverty is a very serious problem that has not been actively solved in Slovakia for a long time, despite the fact that it has been known and talked about for a long time. Energy poverty can be characterized as the unavailability of supplies of electricity, heat, hot water and drinking water in a basic standard at reasonable prices and of adequate quality. It is a social problem and several ministries, led by the Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, should participate in its solution.

For energy-poor households, a price increase without effective help from the state is liquidating. Therefore, the state must focus not only on creating a definition of energy poverty, but also on looking for an addressable solution for households that already feel the increase in prices as a huge problem. These are the measures that the state will manage to prepare even during this year without an approved definition of energy poverty.

"Dušana Dokupilová from SAV is a co-author studies, in which there are proposals for solutions to energy poverty. These should focus on finding synergies between social measures and investments in housing. In addition to social policies, it is crucial to improve the access of people at risk of energy poverty to grants, financial instruments and loans. In this way, households will reduce their energy expenses in the long term and at the same time the quality of living will improve. The government can prepare such measures even for the next winter," pointed out Kateřina Chajdiaková from the Slovak Climate Initiative.