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Malcolm Moore, Financial Times
UK oil and gas giant BP is cutting 4,700 jobs, or 5% of its workforce, in order to “save costs and revive a share price that has lagged behind rivals over the past year”, reports the Financial Times. The company is also reducing its number of contractors by 3,000, with 2,600 of those already having departed, it adds. BP’s chief executive Murray Auchincloss has promised to lower the company’s costs by at least $2bn (£1.6bn) across the business, reports the Daily Telegraph. Auchincloss is looking to “soothe investor concerns”, in part over BP’s net-zero strategy, introduced under his predecessor Bernard Looney, it adds. The Times quotes the memo sent by Auchincloss to staff announcing the jobs cuts, saying: “We are uniquely positioned to grow value through the energy transition. But that doesn’t give us an automatic right to win.” BP’s shares have fallen by about 7% over the past year, while competitors such as Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil – who are pursuing more of an oil and gas focus – have seen theirs rise by around 8%, reports the Guardian. Since Auchincloss stepped into his role as chief executive, “the company has begun to dilute its climate pledges, but investors remain concerned over the returns BP can expect from its big-ticket green projects, including multibillion-pound plans to develop offshore windfarms off the UK coast”, the article adds.
Elsewhere, Norway has warned that its oil and gas fields are in decline, reports the Daily Telegraph. “The threat of dwindling production would herald a potential energy crisis for the UK, which last year relied on Norway for half its gas and a quarter of its oil,” the article continues. A drop in Norwegian production could “strengthen Russia’s grip on the global gas market”, it adds.
Matthew Brown, Jennifer McDermott and Jack Dura, The Los Angeles Times
Doug Burgum, incoming US president Donald Trump’s nominee for interior secretary, has told a Senate panel that the US can leverage development of fossil fuels and other energy sources to “promote world peace” and expressed concern about the reliability of renewable power, reports the Los Angeles Times. The former North Dakota governor described Trump’s ambition to achieve US “energy dominance” as a way to counter demand for fossil fuels from autocratic nations that have fewer environmental safeguards, it adds. During the hearing, Burgum told the Senate energy and natural resources committee that the US has an “electricity crisis” due to weaknesses in the grid and “roadblocks” preventing companies from building fossil fuel plants that could provide round-the-clock power, reports the Financial Times. He added that the incoming administration would allocate more land for oil drilling and cut tax breaks that favour renewable energy companies that produce “intermittent and unreliable power”, it notes. Burgum said he views the US’s public lands and waters as part of the country’s financial “balance sheet”, with potentially trillions of dollars of oil, gas and minerals to be extracted from them, reports the New York Times. He said the US must invest in “clean coal” to support the growth of an artificial intelligence industry, reports Politico. He also “alluded to technologies like carbon capture and sequestration to reduce the climate effects of those fossil fuels while providing power for AI”, the article notes. However, Burgum “sidestepped many of the president-elect’s most controversial positions relating to climate and the environment” in the “largely cordial hearing”, the Hill says, and “acknowledged…that climate change is a ‘global phenomenon’”. Beyond Bergum, Trump has tasked New Jersey congressman and vocal critic of offshore wind Republican representative Jeff Van Drew with writing an executive order he could issue to halt wind energy projects, reports the Washington Post.
In other US news, the Biden administration has announced new protections for 1.3m acres of the north slope of Alaska in an effort to stop oil companies from drilling in the ecologically sensitive Arctic environment, reports the New York Times. “The new protections, which take effect immediately, create a legal hurdle that could slow down, though probably not stop, efforts by the Trump administration to expand drilling in part of the north slope known as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska”, the article continues.
Sudarshan Varadhan and Colleen Howe, Reuters
China’s lead in coal imports over second-highest buyer India has expanded to “the widest since at least 2013” as it imported a record 543m metric tonnes of coal last year, Reuters reports. The newswire quotes analysts saying “relaxations in [coal stockpiling] requirements…and coal's decreasing share in power generation” could reduce imports for 2025, but that volumes would likely “still be close to 2024 levels”. The article notes that “global thermal coal prices have retreated from record highs hit after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but are 50% higher than the average during the 2017-19 period”.
Meanwhile, PetroChina’s Tarim oilfield has connected its “largest-ever solar project” to the grid, capable of producing enough electricity to “reduce CO2 emissions by 1.61m tonnes”, state-run newspaper China Daily reports. The 1.3 gigawatt solar plant will generate 2.1 terawatt-hours of energy annually” to support a local petrochemical plant and alleviate local power shortages, the Science and Technology Daily says. Zhong Baoshen, chairman of leading solar manufacturer Longi, said the industry’s supply-demand imbalance “will continue unabated” this year, but expected prices to be “more rational”, Yicai says. Bloomberg reports that Longi saw “a net loss of 8.2-8.8bn yuan ($1.1-1.2bn) last year amid sector overcapacity and an intense price war”. China’s “newly installed new energy storage capacity” grew 136% year-on-year last year to reach 110 gigawatt-hours, industry news outlet China Energy Storage Network says. Following the recent earthquake in Tibet, cracks and other problems have been detected at “five out of 14 hydropower dams” in the region, Reuters reports.
Elsewhere, state news agency Xinhua says sales of consumer goods under the government’s trade-in programme surpassed 1.3tn yuan ($181bn), with “green and smart products…in high demand”. China released a list of the first batch of standards for carbon footprint accounting rules covering products such as steel, cement and lithium-ion batteries, China Securities Journal reports. China Energy Network says the list will “help enterprises systematically understand” energy consumption and carbon emissions along their supply chains.
European car manufacturers could be forced to pay Chinese electric-vehicle rivals hundreds of millions of euros to buy carbon credits, reports the Financial Times. Under EU rules, manufacturers who lag behind in the electric transition face either billions of euros fines, boosting EV sales by slashing prices or buying credits from competitors that are less polluting, the piece explains. With European carmakers such as Volkswagen struggling to meet targets, they could be forced to buy carbon credits from Chinese rivals such as BYD, which has one of the biggest pools of credits to sell, it adds.
In other news, a foreign ministry spokesperson criticised the US ban on imports from several Chinese companies, including five solar manufacturers, as “baseless”, vowing to “take resolute measures” in response, industry news portal BJX News reports. And senator Marco Rubio told US policymakers in his confirmation hearing for US secretary of state that China seeks to “dominate critical minerals, electric cars and batteries”, and its “rise to power has been achieved through dishonest practices”, Nikkei Asia reports.
Dharna Noor, The Guardian
A group of survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires is “taking aim at the industry most responsible for fueling climate disasters: fossil fuels”, reports the Guardian. LA residents have called for litigation and policies to force oil and gas companies to pay for the damages caused by the fires, the newspaper says. The Los Angeles Times reports that climate protestors rallied outside the Phillips 66 oil facility in LA, demanding oil and gas companies “pay up” for the wildfires. Demonstrators from the Sunrise Movement LA gathered at the Phillips 66’s Los Angeles Lubricant Terminal, with 16 storming the facility’s office building, it states. The article quotes a Sunrise Movement volunteer, who said: “Fossil fuel CEOs are responsible for the destruction that is happening right now in Los Angeles. They are responsible for the fact that me and my neighbours had to evacuate our homes, that we still can’t drink our water.”
Emily Beament, Press Association
The number of heat pumps installed in the UK has jumped by 43% over the last year, reports the Press Association. New data from the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) found that there were almost 60,000 certified installations of heat pumps in 2024, the article continues. This jump will bring the total number of installations in UK homes and small businesses to more than 275,000; however, installation rates are still well below the target of 600,000 a year by 2028 set under the previous government, it notes. Speaking at a parliamentary committee this week, energy secretary Ed Miliband said the government would be “wary” about bringing in a ban on the installation of gas boilers, the Daily Telegraph reports. [Then-prime minister Rishi Sunak loosened the 2035 phase-out of gas boiler sales as part of a raft of u-turns in 2023, as reported by Carbon Brief at the time, and this has not been reinstated under the current government.] The article points to progress on legislation that requires boiler manufacturers to set annual targets for heat pump sales, which it dubs a “boiler tax”. The legislation known as the clean heat market mechanism was first proposed in 2021 by the Conservatives government, the article adds. Politico has coverage of Andrew Bowie being appointed as shadow energy minister, while Claire Coutinho is on maternity leave.
In other UK news, leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch “admit[ted]” that the previous Conservative government pledged to reach net-zero by 2050 without a plan for how to achieve this, reports the Daily Telegraph. In a speech given yesterday, Badenoch said the party made a “mistake” when it wrote the target into law, with her comments raising expectations that the Conservatives could “water down or even ditch the net-zero target in their next election manifesto”, the article adds. The Times covers the “power struggle” that has emerged around the proposed development of the Botley West solar farm in Oxfordshire. The Daily Mail covers a police inspector who has been sacked after comparing Just Stop Oil protesters to “spoilt special needs kids” in social media posts. Finally, the Daily Telegraph reports on analysis assessing the weather forecast apps produced by the BBC and Met Office. The Daily Mail says that both “overestimate chances of downpours”.
Justin Rowlatt and Mark Poynting, BBC News
Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere rose more quickly than ever previously recorded last year, “leaving a key global climate target hanging by a thread”, reports BBC News. Scientists at the Met Office have found that the concentrations of the gas are now more than 50% higher than before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels, it continues. In 2024, fossil fuel emissions reached record highs, while “the natural world struggled to absorb as much CO2 due to factors including wildfires and drought, so more accumulated in the atmosphere”, the article notes. The Met Office has warned that this rapid increase in CO2 is “incompatible” with the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, it continues. The team of scientists behind the analysis have written a Carbon Brief guest post about their findings. |
