Climate, in brief

COP31, the UN's yearly climate summit, opens on Monday in Antalya, a resort city in Turkey. [1][6]

Nearly 200 countries will negotiate there for 2 weeks, from 9 to 20 November. [1][5]

Chris Bowen, Australia's climate and energy minister, will run the negotiations. [1]

His country is one of the world's biggest sellers of coal and gas. [1]

Countries that buy their fossil fuels abroad hold 3 in 4 of the world's people. [3] Dear oil is pushing them toward electricity. [3]

Niklas Hohne, of Germany's NewClimate Institute, said of US climate money: "there's no other player who can jump in." [2]

Watch whether the cover decision, the text every country must sign at the end, names fossil fuels at all. [1]

UN climate talks decide by consensus: a text passes only when every country agrees to it. [1]

Jotzo said countries that want fossil fuel plans kept out "will simply prevail". [1] AP reports that is why fossil fuels rarely appear in final texts. [2]

A class choosing a trip where any one pupil can say no ends up with the trip nobody minds.

The 35% goal does not say where the extra electricity comes from. [4] A country could meet it with power from coal. [4]

By 2030 governments plan to produce more than double the fossil fuels that fit a 1.5C limit. [4]

Experts' main hope is how cheap solar and wind power now are, AP reports. [2] Electric car sales keep growing too. [2]

A global carbon budget report comes out on 10 November. [5] World leaders meet in Antalya on 11 and 12 November. [5]

COP31 opens on Monday without any plan to move off fossil fuels on its formal agenda, and with Australia, which expects A$141bn from coal and gas exports this year, running the negotiations. [1][4]

A round-number goal, 35% of energy as electricity by 2035, is easy to cheer, and it says nothing about whether that electricity comes from coal or from the sun. [3][4]

Because every country must agree, any one of them can keep fossil fuel plans out of the final text. [1][2]

With the US out of the talks, no other country is ready to take over its share, Niklas Hohne said. [2]

How much warming the world is heading for.

AP reports the UN found 2.6C, while New Scientist reports the world is on track for 2.8C. [2][6]

What share of the world's energy comes as electricity today.

Bloomberg says about 20%, AP says 21%, and New Scientist cites an analyst's figure of about 23% of energy delivered to consumers. [3][2][7]

Alan Armstrong, a US senator for Oklahoma, pushed rules in a bill that would make gas pipelines easier to approve. [9]

He ran Williams, a big gas pipeline company, for 15 years until March. [9]

On 22 October he still held at least tens of millions of dollars in Williams shares, his filings show. [9]

New York blocked Williams's Constitution pipeline in 2016 by refusing it a water permit. [9] Williams now wants it revived. [9]

The bill would limit what states can weigh when they review those permits. [9] It also limits court challenges. [9]

There are 251 streams along the pipeline's route in upstate New York, and state regulators said 87 hold trout. [9]

Armstrong's office did not answer Inside Climate News's questions. [9] Williams says it backs the whole bill. [9]

The bill is due for a vote next week. [9]

Why the side that has to prove its case usually loses

Every dispute has a rule on who must prove what

The facts are often unclear or hard to get

When they are, the side that had to prove them loses

So moving the burden changes results without any new facts

Moving the burden of proof can settle a fight before a single new fact is found, because unclear facts count against whoever had to prove them.

The same unclear case goes the other way when the burden moves. Nothing about the pipeline itself changes between the two.

Today Williams must show its pipeline keeps New York's water clean, and the bill would make New York prove harm instead, to a higher standard.

Tesla kept failing to hand over its own records, so the judge treated fraud as decided and left the trial only the damages.

From 4 December importers must sign forms for their solar parts, so the job of showing a shipment qualifies falls on the importer.

No placement of the burden is free: a high bar for regulators lets more harmful projects through, and a high bar for builders stops some good ones.

Families along New York's trout streams, a homeowner in California with no finished roof, and solar importers at US ports all live under rules about who must prove what.

In the US the same week, a senator holding tens of millions of dollars in Williams shares pushed pipeline rules that would help Williams. [9]

States could weigh only direct discharges into water, so New York would find it harder to block the Constitution pipeline again. [9]

New York could no longer weigh erosion or runoff from digging across their streams, only direct discharges. [9]

Whether the US permitting bill passes, and with the water permit limits in it.

The vote is due next week, and New York is already in court over Williams's attempt to revive its pipeline. [9]

Matt Canavan, leader of Australia's Nationals party, says his party will not back an EU trade deal as written. [10]

He says the deal would bind Australia by law to the aims of the Paris Agreement, including net zero. [10]

The draft bars any act that "materially defeats" the Paris Agreement's purpose. [10]

Canavan says Australia should stay in the Paris deal, but cut emissions only where it can afford to. [10]

Trade minister Don Farrell says the deal is worth $10 billion in trade, with no renegotiation. [10]

Canavan also said he would rather live next to a nuclear power station than a wind turbine. [10]

He spoke as COP31 was about to open, with Australia's minister running the negotiations. [10][1]

The ABC reports the deal is understood to reaffirm climate duties Australia already has. [10]

Linn County's 3 supervisors in Iowa voted unanimously in October to reject a site for a gas power plant. [12]

Alliant Energy's Iowa arm wants to build it just outside the town of Fairfax. [12]

Fairfax, Atkins and Cedar Rapids, home to 140,000 people, all lie within 3 miles of the site. [12]

It would run only at busy times, a kind of plant called a peaker. [12]

Peakers burn more gas for each unit of power than the more efficient combined-cycle kind. [12] This one would emit about 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gases a year. [12]

Google and QTS are building data centre campuses in Cedar Rapids that will use 1.6 gigawatts together. [12]

Linn County's power demand could rise nearly fivefold if 3 data centre campuses are built, a local group says. [12]

Alliant says it does not build plants for one customer. [12] Its staff said data centres are driving demand. [12]

Next month the Iowa Utilities Commission hears the case, and it can overrule the county. [12]

Its exhaust towers would release carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and fine particles near their towns. [12]

Whether Iowa's state commission will overrule Linn County on the gas plant.

It has the power to, but campaigners say that would be unprecedented, and the hearing is next month. [12]

New US limits on imported solar parts start on 4 December, under a trade law called Section 232. [13]

They set minimum import prices: $0.22 a watt for solar cells and $0.38 for finished panels. [13]

US developers grew their stock of solar gear 126% in the second quarter, to beat trade deadlines. [13]

Officials have not yet issued the forms importers must sign after the deadline. [13]

Sabah Bayatli, head of the developer OCI Energy, said "it is hard for the market to price solar modules today". [13]

Bayatli says tariffs that builders did not plan for will flow into the price of power. [13]

Economists call this a price floor: the lowest price the law allows, here for solar parts coming into the US. [13]

A shop that may not sell anything below a set price cannot undercut the shop next door.

From 4 December importers must sign forms for their solar parts, so the job of showing a shipment qualifies falls on the importer.

Tariff costs that builders did not plan for will flow into higher prices for power deals, OCI Energy's boss says. [13]

Whether panels assembled in the US from imported cells can sell below $0.38 a watt after 4 December.

Customs and commerce officials have not yet issued the forms and instructions importers need. [13]

Pakistan's government unveiled a new car policy on Saturday that favours electric vehicles. [14]

A new levy on petrol cars above 1,000cc, ordinary family cars, would pay for the help to electric ones. [14]

Electric cars would pay 1% sales tax, range-extended cars 6% and hybrids 9%. [14]

That needs approval from the International Monetary Fund, whose programme Pakistan is committed to. [14]

Small petrol cars under 1,000cc, used by many families, are left out of the levy. [14]

Electric two-wheeler sales rose to 240,000 in the last financial year, from 60,000 the year before. [14]

The goal is for 30% of new vehicles to be electric by 2030. [14]

Haroon Akhtar Khan, the prime minister's industries adviser, said dear oil raises the import bill. [14] It also pushes up prices at home. [14]

The adviser called the plan "neutral revenue": the new levy pays for the tax cuts. [14]

Economists call this revenue neutral, and here it lets Pakistan help electric cars within its IMF promises. [14]

A family that buys a new game by selling an old one keeps its pocket money the same.

They would pay 1% sales tax, and state-backed car loans for them rise to 10 million rupees, repaid over five years instead of three. [14]

A new levy on their cars pays for the tax cuts on electric ones. [14]

Pakistan sold 240,000 electric two-wheelers in its last financial year, four times the 60,000 sold the year before.

A California judge has ruled Tesla liable for fraud over a Solar Roof it never finished. [11]

Solar Roof was Tesla's roof of solar tiles, and Tesla installed only about 3,000 before ending it this year. [11]

Ambrose Conroy signed in 2020 for $82,210, and the deal grew to about $110,000. [11]

The roof never passed a county inspection and never made any power. [11]

Tesla has admitted breaking the contract and the warranty, and being negligent. [11]

On 11 September the judge deemed Tesla liable for fraud, after it failed to hand over records. [11]

Conroy says repairs will cost well over $2.5 million. [11] Tesla once offered him $5,000. [11]

Other installers are still dealing with Solar Roofs that Tesla left behind when it ended the product. [11]

Lawyers call it an issue sanction: a side that keeps hiding evidence loses that question without a trial. [11]

So a jury would only set how much Tesla pays, not whether it committed fraud. [11]

A pupil who will not show their working can lose the marks, even when the answer is right.

Tesla has asked an appeal court to step in, calling the ruling "unduly punitive". [11]

The 20 November trial date is off, and a hearing to get the case ready is set for 4 December. [11]

Tesla kept failing to hand over its own records, so the judge treated fraud as decided and left the trial only the damages.

With fraud treated as decided, a trial would only have to set how much Tesla pays him. [11]

How much the Solar Roof case will cost Tesla.

Liability is decided, but Tesla has asked an appeal court to step in and no damages have been set. [11]

Lightning could change from 11% less to 44% more for each degree of warming, a new review finds. [17]

The average of all its projections is 7.5% more per degree. [17] Other scientists are still checking the review. [17]

Most projections agree lightning will rise far from the equator, nearer the poles. [17]

Dry lightning, which strikes without rain, is starting more fires in Australia, a report said last week. [17]

South-east Australia's forests had 50% more dry lightning in 2000 to 2016 than in the 20 years before. [17]

Big fires can build their own storm clouds, whose lightning starts new fires. [17]

In Black Summer, Australia's 2019-2020 fires, there were almost as many fire clouds as in the 40 years before. [17]

About 24,000 people die from lightning strikes each year around the world. [17]

In a storm cloud, small ice crystals hit soft ice pellets called graupel and pass on electric charge. [17]

Warmer air holds more water and more energy, which can feed taller storm clouds. [17]

Rubbing a balloon on a jumper builds up charge until it sparks.

Andrew Dowdy, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne, says "large uncertainties" remain. [17]

How much more lightning a warmer world will bring.

Projections run from 11% less to 44% more per degree, and the review has not yet passed peer review. [17]

Victoria, a state in Australia, approved the Meering West wind farm, with up to 155 turbines. [18]

It would make 1.3 gigawatts and store 1,000 megawatt-hours in batteries, with building due in 2029. [18]

The approval came a day before Victoria's government went into caretaker mode for the 28 November election. [18]

Farmer Tyler Nelson says more than 100 people objected, over noise, fire risk and land values. [18]

The opposition Coalition has promised to scrap VNI West, the new power line the farm would use. [18]

So the farm's future could turn on who wins the election on 28 November. [18]

Their requests, such as moving turbines away from their land, were not taken up, farmer Tyler Nelson says. [18]

Harbinger, a maker of electric delivery trucks, raised $240 million from investors. [15]

It recently won a $300 million order from FedEx, the delivery firm, for 2,000 trucks. [15]

That is believed to be one of the biggest firm orders ever for medium or heavy electric trucks. [15]

Harbinger has raised over $650 million since 2021. [15]

It will spend the new money on power storage, power generation, self-driving software and defence. [15]

Delivery firms like FedEx and Amazon are moving to electric trucks to cut emissions and avoid dear diesel. [15]

Electrek names Harbinger itself as the source of these figures. [15]

FedEx has ordered 2,000 electric delivery trucks from Harbinger, believed to be one of the biggest such orders ever.

Scientists at ICFO, an institute for the science of light, found a way to cut one loss in solar cells. [16]

Francisco Bernal Texca led the study, published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. [16]

Solar cells lose some energy as light they give off, which is called the Boltzmann loss. [16]

The team used a thin silver layer so the cell gave off less light sideways. [16]

That raised the cell's efficiency by about 0.85%, a modest gain. [16]

Today's ceiling in theory, the Shockley-Queisser limit, is 33.16%. [16] Panels on homes usually reach 20 to 23%. [16]

The team says that, in principle, cells could then approach 43%. [16]

If the idea works in real panels, the same roof could make more power. [16] No such panel is on sale yet. [16]

Physicists describe a mismatch: a cell takes in sunlight from a narrow cone. [16] It gives off light in a much wider one. [16]

Narrowing the cone of light a cell gives off lets less energy escape, so more can become power. [16]

A torch with a mirror behind the bulb sends its light one way instead of everywhere.

The headline's "almost double" is the team's long-run aim. [16] The test cell itself gained about 0.85%. [16]

Whether the cavity trick works in ordinary silicon panels.

The test used an organic solar cell, and its gain was about 0.85%. [16]

Workhorse, an electric truck maker, has signed its first dealer in Canada, Tristan Fleet Management. [20]

Tristan will sell and repair Workhorse's W56 electric trucks from 7 sites in Quebec and Ontario. [20]

Workhorse has supplied electric trucks in Canada since 2021 through Purolator, a Canadian delivery company. [20]

Its trucks have now driven 20 million miles with no tailpipe emissions. [20]

Tristan says Quebec's Ecocamionnage incentives and very high fuel costs make going electric pay better than ever. [20]

Electrek names Workhorse as its source for the story. [20]

A local dealer now sells and repairs Workhorse's electric trucks, with round-the-clock roadside help. [20]