Climate, in brief

Europe's gas stores are starting this winter at their lowest level since 2013, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday. [1]

The agency says this could keep gas scarce and dear around the world well into 2027. [1]

The International Energy Agency, or IEA, helps its member countries prepare for energy supply crises. [1]

With stores low, Europe must compete with Asia for the few gas cargoes free to go anywhere. [3] That puts upward pressure on prices. [3]

From August to October, Asia's price lead over Europe narrowed to about $1, a sign of that contest. [3]

Gas engineers call it the withdrawal rate, and it drops once a store is under 30% full. [3]

So stores near 10% in March would leave Europe exposed to a cold snap. [3]

A squeezy ketchup bottle pours fast when it is full, and only splutters out the last bit.

The below-10% figure is the IEA's test of a hard winter, not a forecast of this one. [3]

The IEA's forecast assumes Hormuz stays largely disrupted at least until the end of the year. [3]

The war around the Strait of Hormuz has cut gas shipments from Qatar and the UAE, and Europe enters winter with its smallest gas stores since 2013. [1]

Gas companies like Adnoc are buying supply outside the Gulf, such as Shell's Australian gas stake. [4]

A single big phrase like 'lowest since 2013' carries the news, while the IEA's scariest figure rests on a cold winter and a still-blocked strait. [3]

Their liquefied gas sells into a short market, as buyers in Asia doubled imports from the Atlantic side. [3]

With stores low, Europe must outbid Asia for spare gas cargoes, which pushes spot prices up. [3]

Dear gas pushes those plants back to coal, which pollutes more. [3]

How cold this winter will be in Europe.

The IEA's warning about stores running nearly empty by March assumes colder weather than usual, and no one can know the weather months ahead. [3]

Brazil published the first global roadmap for moving away from coal, oil and gas on Tuesday. [12]

Brazil hosted COP30, last year's UN climate summit, in Belem in the Amazon rainforest. [12]

Countries there fought over fossil fuels, so Brazil promised two roadmaps instead: one on fuels, one on forests. [12]

The plan is voluntary and sets no deadlines. [12] Each country judges its own reliance on fossil fuels and picks its steps. [12]

One early step it names is cutting the gas oil firms burn off or let out at their wells. [12]

The forest roadmap says forests need about $300bn a year by 2030, against about $85bn available now. [12]

Andre Correa do Lago, who led COP30, called the roadmaps 'documents of implementation' for ministries to act on. [12]

COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey, this month, and the roadmaps aim to move the talks from promises to doing. [12]

Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, says the roadmaps include 'no timeline or key benchmarks'. [12]

Deforestation in Brazil has fallen by about 70% in President Lula's last four years. [12]

Why stopping methane slows warming within years, not centuries

Methane traps about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over 20 years

But it breaks down in the air in about 12 years

Carbon dioxide stays for centuries and keeps piling up

So a methane cut lowers warming within a decade or two

A carbon dioxide cut only stops more being added

Methane's extra heat lasts only while the leaks go on. Stop a leak, and within about 12 years most of its warming is gone.

How long each gas stays in the air, as the briefing reports. Methane warms hard but briefly.

GWP* is built on methane breaking down in about 12 years, so a herd that stays the same size is counted as adding no new warming.

Brazil puts cutting gas burned off and let out at wells near the front, because methane is so strong that this cut shows up fast.

Aliso Canyon let out nearly 100,000 tons of methane in 2015, and much of that gas has already broken down; stopping a leak like it lowers warming soon.

White lists cutting methane as a UK priority for COP31, the cut that slows warming soonest.

A short life also makes methane easy to count in flattering ways.

Leaking wells, cattle and old gas stores all add to the same air, from Belem to Los Angeles to New Zealand's farms.

Brent oil ended Tuesday at $103.60 a barrel, its lowest close since 7 October. [6] Brent is the benchmark price for two thirds of the world's oil. [17]

Earlier that day it rose to nearly $107 after US strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island. [17] Qeshm sits at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. [17]

A US official said the strikes appeared limited and did not signal a return to major fighting. [6]

Traders weighed peace talks to end the wars in Iran and Ukraine. [6]

On 30 October Brent stood at $117.56, after a tanker was hit in the strait. [18]

Before the war, the strait carried 20% of the world's oil supplies. [6]

Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state oil company, is expanding a pipeline that avoids the strait, its chief said. [6]

ING, a bank, says clear progress in peace talks would push prices lower still. [6]

It is widening a pipeline around the strait, so more of its oil can avoid Hormuz. [6]

When ships can pass the Strait of Hormuz freely again.

Iran and the US are still far from a deal, a senior Iranian official told Reuters. [6]

2026 will almost certainly be the warmest or second-warmest year on record, Carbon Brief found. [14]

Carbon Brief, a UK climate news site, gives 2026 a 67% chance of beating 2024's record. [14]

August 2026 was the warmest August on record in all 6 main global temperature records. [14]

The odds of a record vary by group, from 97% in Berkeley Earth's data to under 20% in Copernicus's. [14]

About 22% of Earth's surface had its warmest July to September on record, including Iberia. [14]

Climatologists call El Nino the warm phase of a Pacific pattern that releases ocean heat into the air. [14]

This El Nino broke its daily record in September, and its biggest effect on world temperatures comes in 2027. [14]

Sun-warmed paving stones stay warm for hours after the sun has gone down.

Carbon Brief puts a 96% chance on 2027 being the warmest year on record. [14]

Whether 2026 will be named the warmest year on record.

Six groups keep the global record, they do not agree on the odds, and they report in January. [14]

Katie White, the UK's climate minister, says next week's COP31 talks must respond to science she calls 'really scary'. [19]

She pointed to this summer's heat and wildfires as signs warming is 'something we're living through'. [19]

She said the UK's priorities include cutting methane and slowing deforestation. [19]

White said the Hormuz crisis drove the biggest take-up of solar, electric cars and heat pumps the UK has seen. [19]

The heat she means was deadly: Carbon Brief noted 50,000 excess heat deaths across Europe this summer. [19]

She said approving the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea is 'fully in line' with UK carbon budgets. [19]

She also defended chancellor John Healey's Budget, which put more weight on keeping bills down, as a 'natural evolution'. [19]

White lists cutting methane as a UK priority for COP31, the cut that slows warming soonest.

The UK government's energy independence bill, introduced on Wednesday, ends new onshore fracking licences in England. [20]

Fracking pumps liquid underground at high pressure to crack rock and free oil or gas. [20]

A Conservative government banned it in 2019, and Liz Truss lifted the ban in 2022. [20]

The bill also puts energy brokers, middlemen who find businesses power deals, under the watchdog Ofgem. [20]

The UK government expects that to save businesses more than £100m a year in hidden fees and mis-selling. [20]

Businesses often use a broker for energy, and unlike mortgage brokers these middlemen are largely unregulated. [20]

Councils will be able to fine landlords up to £30,000 for homes below energy efficiency rules. [20]

Friends of the Earth says leaving smaller fracking-like methods out lets fracking 'creep in through the back door'. [20]

A University of Edinburgh professor says quakes from smaller operations can be as large as from big ones. [20]

Unregulated brokers pushed some into overpriced energy deals while keeping hidden commissions. [20]

The US Environmental Protection Agency is ending a 20-year effort to measure air pollution from giant livestock farms. [21]

These farms pack tens of thousands of animals in one place. [21] Their waste gives off ammonia and fine dust. [21]

Research links pollution from these farms to nearly 12,700 US deaths a year. [21]

Since 2005, a deal spared thousands of farms legal action while a study built ways to measure them. [21]

The EPA never produced those methods, and now says its data are 'too old and too limited'. [21]

The National Pork Producers Council, a pig farmers' group, welcomed the decision. [21]

Lawyers call the 2005 deal a safe harbour: farms were spared prosecution in exchange for joining a study. [21]

The study was meant to show which farms need permits. [21] With no method from it, the EPA has no national way to check which farms cross that line. [21]

A teacher who never writes the test can never mark anyone down.

The EPA has stopped trying to measure the ammonia and dust these farms give off. [21]

Whether US livestock farms will have their air pollution measured at all.

There is no EPA method to estimate it, and a lawyer for Food and Water Watch says no one is going to estimate anything. [21]

A Greenpeace report says a new way of counting methane could let big beef countries claim cuts they barely make. [13]

Methane, which cattle burp out, warms about 80 times more than carbon dioxide over 20 years. [13]

It breaks down after about 12 years, while carbon dioxide builds up for centuries. [13]

The method, GWP*, was made at the University of Oxford. [13] It treats steady methane output as adding no extra warming. [13]

Using it, 10 big livestock exporters could report a 30% methane cut while really cutting 0.6%, the report finds. [13]

In one year, that gap would be bigger than Indonesia's total emissions in 2025, the report says. [13]

New Zealand set the first national target built on this method last year. [13]

Climate scientists call the comparison global warming potential: how much a gas warms against carbon dioxide. [13]

Because methane fades in about 12 years, the time window chosen changes how big a tonne of it looks. [13]

A sprint and a marathon look very different if you only time the first minute.

This year 42 prominent climate scientists warned the method could undercut needed methane cuts. [13]

Industry groups did not answer questions from Inside Climate News. [13]

GWP* is built on methane breaking down in about 12 years, so a herd that stays the same size is counted as adding no new warming.

With GWP*, they could hold herds steady and still report progress on the methane pledge. [13]

Whether GWP* will shape how countries report methane at COP31.

New Zealand already counts with it, while 42 climate scientists have warned against it. [13]

The first $20 million from a gas leak settlement is now open to homes near Los Angeles. [22] It pays for heat pumps, electric stoves and water heaters. [22]

In 2015 a gas storage well at Aliso Canyon failed and leaked for more than 100 days. [22]

It released nearly 100,000 tons of methane, the largest known leak in the US. [22]

Thousands of families fell ill, and the gas company moved about 8,000 families out of their homes. [22]

In all the program offers $40 million, and poorer households can get up to $31,800 each. [22]

Gas stoves, used by 47 million Americans, give off nitrogen dioxide, linked to asthma. [22]

The leaking facility later reopened at reduced capacity, after it was deemed safe to run. [22]

Carol Kamei, 72, lived near the leak for 46 years. [22] She hopes to swap her gas oven for an electric one. [22]

Aliso Canyon let out nearly 100,000 tons of methane in 2015, and much of that gas has already broken down; stopping a leak like it lowers warming soon.

In Georgia, Democrats won majority control of the Public Service Commission for the first time in 30 years, Grist reports. [9]

The commission has the final say on how Georgia Power, the state's biggest utility, makes power and what customers pay. [9]

Georgia Power's plans to supply a data centre boom rely heavily on fossil fuels. [9]

Georgia is one of 10 states whose voters elect their utility regulators. [9]

Michigan voters passed a measure barring utility-funded groups and utility bosses from giving to state campaigns. [9]

In Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, winners attacked their rivals over data centres. [9]

So the new Georgia majority will decide Georgia Power's rate rises and how it meets new demand. [9]

Opponents say Michigan's measure limits companies' free speech, and experts expect court challenges. [9]

Solar power cut Spain's wholesale electricity costs by an estimated €17.02 billion in 18 months. [10] The estimate comes from UNEF, Spain's solar trade group. [10]

Without solar, the average day-ahead price would have been €112 per megawatt-hour, not €60.2. [10]

The gap was widest in June 2026: €69.6, against an estimated €162.7 without solar. [10]

UNEF also estimates every euro put into solar saves €8 on wholesale prices. [10]

Homes and firms using their own panels draw less from the grid. [10] UNEF says that helps buyers with no panels too. [10]

Economists call this marginal pricing, and UNEF says solar lowers Spain's price by pushing dearer plants out. [10]

Solar costs almost nothing to run, so in sunny hours it replaces dearer plants and the price everyone pays falls. [10]

If a class trip is priced by its dearest coach, adding a cheap coach means the dear one stays home.

UNEF is the solar industry's own group, and its figure comes from modelling a market without solar. [10]

Solar power cut Spain's wholesale electricity costs by an estimated €17.02 billion in 18 months.

India's renewable power capacity passed 300 gigawatts in 2026, almost four times its size a decade ago, the IEA says. [11]

India reached its goal of half its power capacity from non-fossil sources in 2025, five years early. [11]

Renewables saved India more than $100 billion in coal and gas imports from 2011 to 2025. [11]

Without them, India would have imported about 110 million tonnes more coal in 2025. [11]

Energy analysts call it cutting import dependence: India's sun and wind power is fuel it need not buy abroad. [11]

A garden that grows its own tomatoes needs fewer trips to the shop.

The IEA released these figures at a New Delhi summit, beside India's renewable energy minister, Pralhad Joshi. [11]

India is now the world's second-largest maker of solar panels. [11]

The IEA's head, Fatih Birol, says this gives India energy security while world energy markets are uncertain. [11]

The IEA expects India's renewable capacity to reach about 530 gigawatts by 2030, mostly solar. [11]

Spain and India show home-grown solar and wind saving them billions on power and fuel imports. [10][11]

India's renewables saved it more than $100 billion in coal and gas imports from 2011 to 2025, and it met its clean-power capacity goal five years early.

Waaree, an Indian solar panel maker, started two new lines at its factory in Brookshire, Texas, on 29 October. [23]

Each line makes 800 megawatts of panels a year, bringing the site to 3.2 gigawatts. [23]

Waaree is also growing its Arizona plant, to make 4.8 gigawatts in the US by March 2027. [23]

Its US factory revenue rose to 13 billion rupees, or $146 million, last quarter, from 7.32 billion a year earlier. [23]

US orders now make up 43.8% of Waaree's order book, up from about 36% a quarter earlier. [23]

Trade economists call it tariff-jumping: Waaree builds in Texas as US measures make imported panels dearer. [23]

A panel made in Texas is not an import, so those measures do not fall on it. [23]

A school that charges for snacks brought in makes it worth opening a tuck shop inside.

US measures that make imported panels dearer give their Texas-made panels an edge. [23]

Tesla's Megapack factory in Brookshire, Texas, is now a foreign-trade zone, approved for 14 months. [24] Megapacks are big batteries for power grids. [24]

In a zone, a firm can pay import duty later, when the finished product leaves. [24]

But Chinese battery cells inside still pay the US tariff, which rose from 7.5% to 25% on 1 January. [24]

Paying later helps Tesla's cash while the factory ramps up. [24] Megapacks shipped abroad from the zone pay no US duty. [24]

The factory is built to make 50 gigawatt-hours of batteries a year. [24]

Electrek, an electric vehicle news site, calls the status useful but 'not an exemption'. [24]

LG Energy Solution is due to start supplying Tesla with cells from Michigan in the second half of 2027. [24]

Yingfa Ruineng, a Chinese solar cell maker, opened a 7.5 gigawatt cell factory in Indonesia. [25]

It is the company's first base outside China, and will supply Southeast Asia and the Middle East. [25]