Opening the North Sea gasfield will deliver minimal benefits for households, while sending a dismal signal before next month’s Cop summit

This week a report from the UN Environment Programme concluded that holding global temperatures to a 1.5C warming limit – the centrepiece commitment of the Paris climate agreement – is no longer achievable. If the disastrous consequences of a significant overshoot are to be mitigated, it argued, governments must start delivering the short-term actions to meet long-term targets on reducing fossil fuel consumption.

Disappointingly, Andy Burnham and his energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, took a different view of short-term priorities on Wednesday. Before the November Cop summit, where regaining lost momentum on climate action will be crucial, their decision to approve new drilling in the Jackdaw gasfield sent a dismal signal. The prime minister justified it as a pragmatic move “at a time when people are really struggling”. But the pragmatic arguments don’t stack up.

‘The climate issue is the security issue,’ says Turkish minister at Pacific pre-Cop summit in Fiji

Wealthy countries should spend far more on dealing with the climate crisis than the 5% of GDP promised by Nato members for defence because “the climate issue is the security issue”, the host of the next UN summit has said.

But, in comments that are likely to prove contentious, the Cop31 president-designate, Murat Kurum, hedged on whether countries should try to repeat a previous agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels” – the primary cause of the climate crisis – when they meet in Turkey next month.

Prime minister tells delegates in Tuvalu and Fiji that ‘super El Niño’ brewing in the Pacific shows climate change is ‘here right now’

Anthony Albanese has warned Australia faces a hazardous summer, likely including floods, cyclones and extreme heat, due to the immediate threat of climate breakdown and a rising “super El Niño”.

Speaking alongside national leaders at a climate summit in Fiji, the prime minister said the expected nasty summer and the demonstrated impact on Pacific island countries – including low-lying Tuvalu – showed the world could not afford to let the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C “just slip from our grasp”.

Exclusive: Cop31 leader calling for global curbs on climate-heating gas has landfills producing some of world’s worst plumes

Two or three nights each week, the smell descends. Residents of villages on the rural outskirts of Istanbul don’t know what the smell is, but they have been plagued by it for years: a smell so bad they have to sleep with their windows closed even during hot summer nights. They know the source, too: the huge Silivri municipal waste dump a few miles away that is belching out stinking gases as food and other organic waste rots.

“The smell is not subtle. It suffocates you,” said Kemalettin Özenç, sitting outside a tea shop in the village of Yolçatı. “It’s worse when the air is still: sometimes families linger until midnight out here. Even when you go inside it’s inescapable.”

Apart from effort to electrify, there were geopolitical tensions around climate science and the 1.5C goal at pre-Cop31 climate talks

Electrifying the world – with electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate.

For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit, the subject finally took centre stage.

Third of world’s energy needs should come from electricity by 2035, says Murat Kurum, as priorities set out for this year’s UN climate summit

The world should aim to meet a third of its energy needs from electricity within a decade to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the host of the next UN climate summit has said.

While about a third of global electricity generation already comes from renewable sources, other energy-intensive sectors – chiefly transport, heating and industries – have lagged behind. Close to four-fifths of final energy still comes from fossil fuels, as a result.

‘Coalition of the willing’ gathers in Colombia to try to bypass petrostate blockages of Cop summits and chart fresh path

The world’s first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, takes place in Santa Marta, Colombia, from 24 to 29 April. A “coalition of the willing” – including 54 countries and various subnational governments, civil society groups and academics – will try to chart a new path to powering the world with low-carbon energy.

Santa Marta conference born out of frustration at Cop summits, where renewable progress has been stalled by major polluters

Everybody knows fossil fuels cause climate breakdown, but until recently, mention of them was all but erased from the annual UN climate summits. Last year, two weeks of discussions ended without fossil fuels being mentioned in the final outcome.

Frustration with those talks led a small developing country with a large fossil fuel sector – Colombia, the largest coal and fourth biggest oil exporter in the Americas – to rewrite the rules. With co-convener the Netherlands, and support from more than 50 countries, Colombia will host a groundbreaking new global conference this month to begin the long-awaited “transition away from fossil fuels”.

More than 33GW of battery capacity approved for Turkish grid since 2022 compared with 12-13GW in Germany

Turkey has given the green light to more batteries to buffer its electricity grid than any EU member state, a report has found, in a further sign of rich countries losing steam in the race to a clean economy.

More than 33GW of battery capacity have been approved in Turkey since 2022, according to the climate thinktank Ember, while the total planned and operational capacity in European frontrunners that started deploying them earlier, such as Germany and Italy, is 12-13GW.

Simon Stiell tells audience in Cop31 host nation Turkey that climate extremes are fuelling famine, displacement and war

National security strategies that fail to take account of the climate crisis are “dangerously narrow”, and will leave countries open to “a new world disorder” threatening famine and conflict, the UN’s climate chief has warned.

The warnings came as a draft of a key agenda for the Cop31 climate conference omitted to mention fossil fuels, and skewed instead to the interests of the Turkish hosts, such as waste management and tourism.

Fortnight-long event to be held in Antalya but Australian climate change minister Chris Bowen expected to lead the negotiations

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Turkey will host the Cop31 climate conference after the Australian government dropped its push to hold the event in Adelaide at the last moment despite having invested in a more than three-year campaign.

But Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, is expected to lead climate negotiations at the summit in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya in November 2026 under a compromise deal to resolve a standoff between the two countries.