BRUSSELS — Pressure is mounting on the European Commission to exempt fertilizers from its new carbon tariff scheme, as national capitals side with farmers over industry to unpick one of the EU’s newest climate policies. During a discussion requested by Austria on Monday, 12 countries called for a temporary exclusion of fertilizers from the European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), a levy on the greenhouse gas emissions of certain goods imported into the bloc. They argued that CBAM, which only became fully operational on Jan. 1, is sending already-rising fertilizer even higher, adding to economic difficulties for crop farmers. “European arable farmers are currently facing not just low producer prices, but also rising production costs. The main cost drivers are fertilizer prices, which have increased markedly since 2020,” Johannes Frankhauser, a senior official in Austria’s agriculture ministry, told ministers gathered in Brussels. Eleven countries backed Vienna in Monday’s meeting. Yet critics — which include fertilizer producers, environment-focused MEPs and several governments — warn that such an exemption would not only penalize the EU’s domestic producers but threaten the integrity of the carbon tariff scheme. “High prices of production inputs, including fertilizers, have a direct impact on the economic situation of farms… However, we want an optimal solution in order to maintain food security on one hand and on the other [avoid] possible negative impacts on the competitiveness of EU fertilizer producers,” said Polish Agriculture Minister Stefan Krajewski, whose country is a major fertilizer producer.  Germany, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands expressed similar sentiments.  CBAM was phased in over several years and is supposed to protect European producers of heavily polluting goods — cement, iron, steel, aluminum, fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen — from cheap and dirty foreign competition. EU manufacturers of these products currently pay a carbon price on their planet-warming emissions, while importers didn’t before the CBAM came into force. By introducing a levy on imports from countries without carbon pricing, the EU wants to even out the playing field and encourage its trading partners to switch to cleaner manufacturing practices. (Those partners aren’t too happy.) The CBAM price is paid by the importers, which are free to pass on the cost to buyers — in the case of fertilizers, farmers.  Fertilizers make up a substantial share of farms’ operating costs, and EU-based companies do not produce enough to match demand. CBAM is therefore expected to push up fertilizer costs, though estimates on by how much vary greatly. A group of nine EU countries led by France mentioned a 25 percent increase in a recent missive, while Austria reckons it’s 10-15 percent.  The main cost drivers are fertilizer prices, which have increased markedly since 2020,” Johannes Frankhauser, a senior official in Austria’s agriculture ministry, told ministers gathered in Brussels. | Olivier Hoslet/EPA Carbon pricing analyst firm Sandbag, however, says it’s far lower for the next two years — less than 1 percent, or a couple of euros per ton of ammonia, a fertilizer component that costs several hundred euros per ton without the levy. Responding to governments on Monday, Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen noted that the EU executive already tweaked the policy to provide relief to farmers in December, and followed up in January with a promise to suspend some regular tariffs on fertilizer components to offset the additional CBAM cost. SUSPENSION SUSPENSE The Commission in December set in motion legislative changes that could allow it to enact such a suspension in the event of “serious and unforeseen circumstances” harming the bloc’s internal market — in effect, an emergency brake for CBAM. The suspension can apply retroactively, the EU executive said earlier this month. Yet EU governments and the European Parliament each have to approve this clause before the Commission could make such a move, a process expected to take the better part of this year. Environment ministers can vote on the changes in March or June, and MEPs haven’t even chosen their lead lawmakers to work on the Parliament’s position yet. That’s why Austria on Monday called on the Commission to “immediately” suspend CBAM until “the regular possibility to temporarily suspend CBAM on fertilisers is ensured.” The legal basis for such a move is unclear, as the legislation in force does not feature an exemption clause.  Vienna’s request for a debate came after a group of nine countries — Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Romania — wrote to the Commission requesting a suspension earlier this month. During Monday’s discussion, Croatia and Estonia also expressed support for such a move.  Ireland welcomed the Commission’s proposal of a suspension clause but asked for additional details.  Spain was ambivalent: “We need to strengthen our industrial capacity to contribute to the strategic autonomy of the European Union. But clearly, the decarbonisation of this sector mustn’t jeopardize farmers’ livelihoods,” said Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas.  Italy, which previously signaled its support for a suspension, did not explicitly endorse such a move — merely backing the Commission’s already-announced tweaks to normal fertilizer tariffs in its intervention on Monday.  Not all countries took to the floor. Czechia, for example — whose new government is opposed to large parts of EU climate legislation, but whose prime minister owns Europe’s second-largest nitrogen fertilizer producer — remained silent. The Czech agriculture ministry did not respond to a request for comment. INDUSTRY ALARMED While exempting fertilizers may win governments kudos from farmers, European fertilizer manufacturers would be irate. The producers’ association Fertilisers Europe warned that such a move would be “totally unacceptable” and “undermine the competitiveness” of EU companies. Yara, a major Norwegian fertilizer producer, said that “CBAM was designed to ensure a level playing field. Weakening it through tariff reductions or retroactive suspension sends the wrong signal to companies investing in Europe’s green transition.” Mohammed Chahim, the vice president of the center-left Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, said that EU companies “need regulatory stability.” “European fertilizer producers have spent precious time and significant resources, often with support from taxpayer money, to decarbonize,” said the Dutch MEP, who drafted the Parliament’s position on the original CBAM law. “Any exemptions for CBAM send a terrible signal — not just to our own industry, but to the world.”  It’s not only makers of fertilizer that are up in arms. Companies in the heavy industry sector — whose competitiveness CBAM is supposed to protect — are warning that granting an exemption once could produce a domino effect, encouraging buyers of all CBAM goods to lobby for relief.  German MEP Peter Liese, environment coordinator of the center-right European People’s Party, said earlier this month that a retroactive exemption would be “theoretically possible” but that he was “very much against it because I believe that if we start doing that, we will end up in a cascade. | Ronald Wittek/EPA “Once one sector gets an exemption, other sectors will want this too,” warned the Business for CBAM coalition, a lobby group of companies and industry groups. “We therefore call on the European Parliament and [ministers] to remove” the exemption clause, it added.  Similarly, German MEP Peter Liese, environment coordinator of the center-right European People’s Party, said earlier this month that a retroactive exemption would be “theoretically possible” but that he was “very much against it because I believe that if we start doing that, we will end up in a cascade. If we suspend it for fertilizers, there are immediately arguments to suspend it in other sectors as well.” 

LONDON — The U.K. should follow Donald Trump’s example and quit the United Nations treaty that underpins global action to combat climate change, the deputy leader of Reform UK said. Richard Tice, energy spokesperson for Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party, said the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the linked U.N. climate science body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were “failing British voters.” Asked if the U.K. should follow the U.S. — which announced its withdrawal from the institutions, plus 64 other multilateral bodies, on Wednesday — Tice told POLITICO: “Yes I do. They are deeply flawed, unaccountable, and expensive institutions.” The 1992 UNFCCC serves as the international structure for efforts by 198 countries to slow the rate of greenhouse gas emissions. It also underpins the system of annual COP climate conferences. The U.S. will be the only country ever to leave the convention. Reform UK has led in U.K. polls for nearly a year, but the country’s next election is not expected until 2029. A theoretical U.K. exit from the UNFCCC would represent an extraordinary volteface for a country which has long boasted about global leadership on climate. Under former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the U.K. hosted COP26 in 2021. It has been one of the most active participants in recent summits under Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It was also the first major economy in the world to legislate for a net zero goal by 2050, in line with the findings of IPCC reports. Tice has repeatedly referred to the target as “net stupid zero.” The U.K. government was approached for comment on the U.S. withdrawal. Pippa Heylings, energy and net zero spokesperson for the U.K.’s centrist Liberal Democrat party, said Trump’s decision would “make the world less secure.”

LONDON — British students will once again be able to take part in the EU’s Erasmus+ exchange scheme from January 2027 — following a six-year hiatus due to Brexit. U.K. ministers say they have secured a 30 percent discount on payments to re-enter the program that strikes “a fair balance between our contribution and the benefits” it offers. The move is one of the first tangible changes out of Keir Starmer’s EU “reset,” which is designed to smooth the harder edges off Boris Johnson’s Brexit settlement while staying outside the bloc’s orbit. In an announcement on Wednesday Brussels and London also confirmed they were formally beginning negotiations on U.K. re-entry into the EU’s internal market for electricity. Both sides hope the move, which was called for by industry in both sides of the Channel, will cut energy bills while also making it easier to invest in North Sea green energy projects — which have been plagued by Brexit complications. They also pledged to finish ongoing talks on linking the U.K. and EU carbon trading systems, as well as a new food and drink (SPS) deal, by the time they meet for an EU-U.K. summit in 2026. The planned meeting, which will take place in Brussels, does not yet have a date but is expected around the same time as this year’s May gathering in London. The announcements give more forward momentum to the “reset,” which faltered earlier this month after failing to reach an agreement on British membership of an EU defense industry financing program, SAFE. The two sides could not agree on the appropriate level of U.K. financial contribution. The pledge to finalize carbon trading (ETS) linkage next year is significant because it will help British businesses avoid a new EU carbon border tax — CBAM — which starts from Jan. 1 2026. While the tax, which charges firms for the greenhouse gas emissions in their products, begins on Jan. 1, payments are not due until 2027, by which time the U.K. is expected to be exempt. But it is not yet clear whether British firms will have to make back payments on previous imports once the deal is secured, and there is no sign of any deal to bridge the gap. WIDENING HORIZONS EU Relations Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who negotiated the agreement, said the move was “a huge win for our young people” and would break down barriers and widen horizons so that “everyone, from every background, has the opportunity to study and train abroad.” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola welcomes British Minister for the Constitution and European Union Relations Nick Thomas-Symonds. | Ronald Wittek/EPA “This is about more than just travel: it’s about future skills, academic success, and giving the next generation access to the best possible opportunities,” he said. “Today’s agreements prove that our new partnership with the EU is working. We have focused on the public’s priorities and secured a deal that puts opportunity first.” The expected cost of the U.K.’s membership of the Erasmus+ program in 2027 will be £570 million. Skills Minister Jacqui Smith said Erasmus+ membership is “about breaking down barriers to opportunity, giving learners the chance to build skills, confidence and international experience that employers value.” Liberal Democrat Universities Spokesperson Ian Sollom also welcomed U.K. re-entry into the exchange scheme but said it should be a “first step” in a closer relationship with the EU. “This is a moment of real opportunity and a clear step towards repairing the disastrous Conservative Brexit deal,” he said. “However while this is a welcome breakthrough, it must be viewed as a crucial first step on a clear roadmap to a closer relationship with Europe. Starting with negotiating a bespoke UK-EU customs union, and committing to a youth mobility scheme for benefit of the next generation.”

BRUSSELS — More than 80 percent of Europe’s companies will be freed from environmental-reporting obligations after EU institutions reached a deal on a proposal to cut green rules on Monday.   The deal is a major legislative victory for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her push cut red tape for business, one of the defining missions of her second term in office. However, that victory came at a political cost: The file pushed the coalition that got her re-elected to the brink of collapse and led her own political family, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), to team up with the far right to get the deal over the line. The new law, the first of many so-called omnibus simplification bills, will massively reduce the scope of corporate sustainability disclosure rules introduced in the last political term. The aim of the red tape cuts is to boost the competitiveness of European businesses and drive economic growth. The deal concludes a year of intense negotiations between EU decision-makers, investors, businesses and civil society, who argued over how much to reduce reporting obligations for companies on the environmental impacts of their business and supply chains — all while the effects of climate change in Europe were getting worse. “This is an important step towards our common goal to create a more favourable business environment to help our companies grow and innovate,” said Marie Bjerre, Danish minister for European affairs. Denmark, which holds the presidency of the Council of the EU until the end of the year, led the negotiations on behalf of EU governments. Marie Bjerre, Den|mark’s Minister for European affairs, who said the agreement was an important step for a more favourable business environment. | Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images Proposed by the Commission last February, the omnibus is designed to address businesses’ concerns that the paperwork needed to comply with EU laws is costly and unfair. Many companies have been blaming Europe’s overzealous green lawmaking and the restrictions it places on doing business in the region for low economic growth and job losses, preventing them from competing with U.S. and Chinese rivals.   But Green and civil society groups — and some businesses too — argued this backtracking would put environmental and human health at risk. That disagreement reverberated through Brussels, disturbing the balance of power in Parliament as the EPP broke the so-called cordon sanitaire — an unwritten rule that forbids mainstream parties from collaborating with the far right — to pass major cuts to green rules. It set a precedent for future lawmaking in Europe as the bloc grapples with the at-times conflicting priorities of boosting economic growth and advancing on its green transition. The word “omnibus” has since become a mainstay of the Brussels bubble vernacular with the Commission putting forward at least 10 more simplification bills on topics like data protection, finance, chemical use, agriculture and defense. LESS PAPERWORK   The deal struck by negotiators from the European Parliament, EU Council and the Commission includes changes to two key pieces of legislation in the EU’s arsenal of green rules: The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).  The rules originally required businesses large and small to collect and publish data on their greenhouse gas emissions, how much water they use, the impact of rising temperatures on working conditions, chemical leakages and whether their suppliers — which are often spread across the globe — respect human rights and labor laws.    Now the reporting rules will only apply to companies with more than 1,000 employees and €450 million in net turnover, while only the largest companies — with 5,000 employees and at least €1.5 billion in net turnover — are covered by supply chain due diligence obligations. They also don’t have to adopt transition plans, with details on how they intend to adapt their business model to reach targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.   Importantly the decision-makers got rid of an EU-level legal framework that allowed civilians to hold businesses accountable for the impact of their supply chains on human rights or local ecosystems. MEPs have another say on whether the deal goes through or not, with a final vote on the file slated for Dec. 16. It means that lawmakers have a chance to reject what the co-legislators have agreed to if they consider it to be too far from their original position.

LONDON — The British government said it opposes attempts to cool the planet by spraying millions of tons of dust into the atmosphere — but did not close the door to a debate on regulating the technology.  The comments in parliament Thursday came after a POLITICO investigation revealed an Israeli-U.S. company Stardust Solutions aimed to be capable of deploying solar radiation modification, as the technology is called, inside this decade. “We’re not in favor of solar radiation modification given the uncertainty around the potential risks it poses to the climate and environment,” Leader of the House of Commons Alan Campbell said on behalf of the government. Stardust has recently raised $60 million in finance from venture capital investors, mostly based in Silicon Valley and Britain. It is the largest ever investment in the field.  The emergence of a well-funded, private sector actor moving aggressively toward planet cooling capability has led to calls for the global community to regulate the field.  Citing POLITICO’s reporting, Labour MP Sarah Coombes asked the government: “Given the potential risks of this technology, could we have a debate on how Britain will work with other countries to regulate experiments with the earth’s atmosphere, and ensure we cooperate with other countries on solutions that actually tackle the root cause of climate change?” Campbell signaled the government was open to further discussion of the issue by inviting Coombes to raise the point the next time Technology Secretary Liz Kendall took questions in parliament.  Stardust’s CEO Yanai Yedvab told POLITICO the company was also in favor of regulation to ensure the technology was deployed safely and after proper public debate. Some scientists and experts, though, have raised concerns about the level of secrecy under which the company has conducted its research.  Stardust is proposing to use high-flying aircraft to dump millions of tons of a proprietary particle into the stratosphere, around 12 miles above the Earth’s surface. The technology mimics the short term global cooling that occurs when volcanoes blow dust and gas high into the sky, blocking a small amount of the sun’s heat.  Most scientists agree this could temporarily lower the Earth’s surface temperature, helping to avert some impacts of global warming. The side effects, however, are not well researched.  The U.K. has one of the world’s best funded research programs looking at the impacts of its potential use, via its Advanced Research and Invention Agency.  “We do work closely with the international research community to evaluate the latest scientific evidence,” said Campbell.   POLITICO has meanwhile been blocked from receiving internal government advice on solar radiation modification. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has refused to release the documents, arguing this would have a “chilling effect” on the candor of advice by officials to ministers.  In a response to a records request, DESNZ Director of International Climate Matt Toombs said: “Our priority is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activities and to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. Any research into cooling technologies in no way alleviates the urgent need for increased decarbonization efforts.”

TOURNAI, Belgium — Back in 2016, a freak storm destroyed the entire strawberry crop on Hugues Falys’ farm in the province of Hainaut in west Belgium. It was one of a long string of unusual natural calamities that have ravaged his farm, and which he says are becoming more frequent because of climate change. Falys now wants those responsible for the climate crisis to pay him for the damage done — and he’s chosen as his target one of the world’s biggest oil companies: TotalEnergies. In a packed courtroom in the local town of Tournai, backed by a group of NGOs and a team of lawyers, Falys last week made his case to the judges that the French fossil fuel giant should be held responsible for the climate disasters that have decimated his yields. It’s likely to be a tricky case to make. TotalEnergies, which has yet to present its side of the case in court, told POLITICO in a statement that making a single producer responsible for the collective impact of centuries of fossil fuel use “makes no sense.” But the stakes are undeniably high: If Falys is successful, it could create a massive legal precedent and open a floodgate for similar litigation against other fossil fuel companies across Europe and beyond. “It’s a historic day,” Falys told a crowd outside the courtroom. “The courts could force multinationals to change their practices.” A TOUGH ROW TO HOE While burning fossil fuels is almost universally accepted as the chief cause of global warming, the impact is cumulative and global, the responsibility of innumerable groups over more than two centuries. Pinning the blame on one company — even one as huge as TotalEnergies, which emits as much CO2 every year as the whole of the U.K. combined — is difficult, and most legal attempts to do so have failed. Citing these arguments, TotalEnergies denies it’s responsible for worsening the droughts and storms that Falys has experienced on his farm in recent years. The case is part of a broader movement of strategic litigation that aims to test the courts and their ability to enforce changes on the oil and gas industry. More than 2,900 climate litigation cases have been filed globally to date. “It’s the first time that a court, at least in Belgium, can recognize the legal responsibility, the accountability of one of those carbon polluters in the climate damages that citizens, and also farmers like Hugues, are suffering and have already suffered in the previous decade,” Joeri Thijs, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Belgium, told POLITICO in front of the courtroom. MAKING HISTORY Previous attempts to pin the effects of climate change on a single emitter have mostly failed, like when a Peruvian farmer sued German energy company RWE arguing its emissions contributed to melting glaciers putting his village at risk of flooding. But Thijs said that “the legal context internationally has changed over the past year” and pointed to the recent “game-changer” legal opinion of the International Court of Justice, which establishes the obligations of countries in the fight against climate change. TotalEnergies, which has yet to present its side of the case in court. | Gregoire Campione/Getty Images “There have been several … opinions that clearly give this accountability to companies and to governments; and so we really hope that the judge will also take this into account in his judgment,” he said. Because “there are various actors who maintain this status quo of a fossil-based economy … it is important that there are different lawsuits in different parts of the world, for different victims, against different companies,” said Matthias Petel, a member of the environment committee of the Human Rights League, an NGO that is also one of the plaintiffs in the case. Falys’ lawsuit is “building on the successes” of recent cases like the one pitting Friends of the Earth Netherlands against oil giant Shell, he told POLITICO. But it’s also trying to go “one step further” by not only looking backward at the historical contribution of private actors to climate change to seek financial compensation, he explained, but also looking forward to force these companies to change their investment policies and align them with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. “We are not just asking them to compensate the victim, we are asking them to transform their entire investment model in the years to come,” Petel said. DIRECT IMPACTS In recent years, Falys, who has been a cattle farmer for more than 35 years, has had to put up with more frequent extreme weather events. The 2016 storm that decimated his strawberry crop also destroyed most of his potatoes. In 2018, 2020 and 2022, heat waves and droughts affected his yields and his cows, preventing him from harvesting enough fodder for his animals and forcing him to buy feed from elsewhere. These events also started affecting his mental health on top of his finances, he told POLITICO. “I have experienced climate change first-hand,” he said. “It impacted my farm, but also my everyday life and even my morale.” Falys says he’s tried to adapt to the changing climate. He transitioned to organic farming, stopped using chemical pesticides and fertilizers on his farm, and even had to reduce the size of his herd to keep it sustainable. Yet he feels that his efforts are being “undermined by the fact that carbon majors like TotalEnergies continue to explore for new [fossil fuel] fields, further increasing their harmful impact on the climate.” FIVE FAULTS Falys’ lawyers spent more than six hours last Wednesday quoting scientific reports and climate studies aimed at showing the judges the direct link between TotalEnergies’ fossil fuel production, the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from their use, and their contribution to climate change and the extreme weather events that hit Falys’ farm. They want TotalEnergies to pay reparations for the damages Falys suffered. But they’re also asking the court to order the company to stop investing in new fossil fuel projects, to drastically reduce its emissions, and to adopt a transition plan that is in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Falys’ lawsuit is “building on the successes” of recent cases like the one pitting Friends of the Earth Netherlands against oil giant Shell, he told POLITICO. | Klaudia Radecka/Getty Images TotalEnergies’ culpability derives from five main faults, the lawyers argued. They claimed the French oil giant continued to exploit fossil fuels despite knowing the impact of their related emissions on climate change; it fabricated doubt about scientific findings establishing this connection; it lobbied against stricter measures to tackle global warming; it adopted a transition strategy that is not aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement; and it engaged in greenwashing, misleading its customers when promoting its activities in Belgium. “Every ton [of CO2 emissions] counts, every fraction of warming matters” to stop climate change, the lawyers hammered all day on Wednesday. “Imposing these orders would have direct impacts on alleviating Mr. Falys’ climate anxiety,” lawyer Marie Doutrepont told the court, urging the judges “to be brave,” follow through on their responsibilities to protect human rights, and ensure that if polluters don’t want to change their practices voluntarily, “one must force them to.” TOTAL’S RESPONSE But the French oil major retorted that Falys’ action “is not legitimate” and has “no legal basis.” In a statement shared with POLITICO, TotalEnergies said that trying to “make a single, long-standing oil and gas producer (which accounts for just under 2 percent of the oil and gas sector and is not active in coal) bear a responsibility that would be associated with the way in which the European and global energy system has been built over more than a century … makes no sense.” Because climate change is a global issue and multiple actors contribute to it, TotalEnergies cannot hold individual responsibility for it, the fossil fuel giant argues. It also said that the company is reducing its emissions and investing in renewable energy, and that targeted, sector-specific regulations would be a more appropriate way to advance the energy transition rather than legal action. The French company challenges the assertion that it committed any faults, saying its activities “are perfectly lawful” and that the firm “strictly complies with the applicable national and European regulations in this area.” TotalEnergies’ legal counsel will have six hours to present their arguments during a second round of hearings on Nov. 26 in Tournai. The court is expected to rule in the first half of next year.

BELÉM, Brazil — Turkey will host next year’s U.N. climate conference after Australia’s bid imploded. Turkey and Australia had faced off for more than a year over the talks’ location, an impasse that extended almost until the final day of the current climate summit in Belém, Brazil. If no resolution had emerged, next year’s summit would have defaulted to Germany, which has said it wouldn’t have time to plan the event properly. While Turkey will provide the venue for the 2026 talks, Australia will hold the presidency — and therefore the diplomacy, said Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy. That means that “I would have all the powers of the COP presidency,” he said. A Turkish official, who did not give his name, said the final deal would be announced on Thursday. Turkey had proposed hosting the talks in the Mediterranean city of Antalya. It is a highly unusual arrangement for the annual climate conference, which normally has a single host and presidency. But it’s not unprecedented: In 2017, Germany hosted a Fijian-led conference. “Obviously it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all,” Bowen said. “It’s also a significant concession for Turkey.” He added that before the summit, separate talks will occur in the Pacific where money would be raised to help that region cope with climate change. German State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth, whose country chairs the Western Europe and Others Group from which the host of next year’s talks is due to be selected based on the rotating system of the U.N., put a positive spin on the discussions. “There was a positive spirit,” he said. “It’s something extraordinary that two countries from very different sides of the planet but being in one group reached an agreement.” But others were more candid. “It’s an ugly solution,” said a European diplomat who was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential discussions. “Turkey just wants to showboat and don’t care about content really, and Aussies do but they don’t control the event and logistics.” The new host country’s climate track record is mixed. Turkey aims to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2053, a date chosen more for its symbolism — 600 years after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople — than science. This year, it presented a new climate target that will see its emissions increase by around 16 percent until 2035. The country overtook Poland last year as Europe’s top coal user, and harbors ambitions of stepping up gas exploration to become a regional transit hub. Australia had secured the backing of the U.K. and some European countries, as well as the Pacific region, with which it planned to co-host the summit. But during a series of long meetings on Wednesday, Australia failed to persuade Turkey to back down. Australia had been favored to host the talks in the city of Adelaide. But on Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blinked, saying his country would not block Turkey as host country if Ankara were to prevail. His office later clarified the statement to indicate he meant that he expected Turkey to do the same if Australia won the competition. But by then, news stories had circulated around the world that Australia had backed down.

LONDON — Rachel Reeves needs at least one good news story to sell. The under-fire U.K. finance minister is gearing up for a tricky budget next week — and slashing Brits’ energy bills could give her something to shout about. Officials in the Treasury and at No. 10 Downing Street are exploring ways to cut domestic energy costs by shifting some levies currently added to household bills into general taxation, said three government figures granted anonymity to discuss pre-budget planning.  Ministers are targeting a cut of between £150 and £170 on an annual household bill, according to one of the three figures. That would get Chancellor Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband halfway toward a totemic election promise of slashing bills by £300 by 2030 — and give the government something positive to pitch on budget day.  Officials are looking at “big numbers,” said another of the figures. “It could be a significant moment.”  A cut to VAT on energy bills is also under consideration, they said, echoing previous reports.  Number crunching by green policy wonks shows how Reeves, via those changes to levies and a potential VAT cut, could get the Treasury to its magic number.  PRIORITY: BILLS  Energy bills are the single biggest factor cited by voters as a cost-of-living concern, according to polls. Left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research, which is highly influential in government circles, has called on Labour ministers to launch a “war on bills” campaign, modeled on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s approach in Australia.  The hope in the Treasury is that, by conjuring up a sum large enough to win some prominent headlines, Reeves might land a good news story on energy bills on a day otherwise set to be dominated by a “smorgasbord” of unpopular tax rises.  Energy prices were “still very high for people,” Reeves acknowledged earlier this month. She pledged to make action on the cost of living “one of the three priorities for the budget,” alongside reducing national debt and protecting the National Health Service.  Last week, nine Labour MPs, including the chair of parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, Toby Perkins, wrote to Reeves urging her to move all social and environmental levies from bills into taxation.  Advocates regard this as a fairer way to ensure the costs fall on those with the broadest shoulders.  “The public wants to see action to reduce energy bills, which now ranks as the most worrying household expense amongst the population,” the letter, coordinated by charity the MCS Foundation, said.  OPTIONS  A dizzying array of levies are charged on bills to pay for renewable energy projects, energy-efficiency schemes and the costs of maintaining a stable electricity system. Collectively, they make up around 18 percent of the average electricity bill.  It isn’t yet clear which might be moved into taxation, but the first government figure above said the so-called Renewables Obligation — a charge that provides an income for older clean energy projects, some built 20 years ago — is the leading candidate to be shifted onto taxation.  The think tank Nesta, which has calculated the value of the reform, says it could potentially cut electricity bills by £86. The New Economics Foundation think tank puts the figure at around £95.  The government is also looking at the Energy Company Obligation, according to reports, which is currently levied on electricity and gas bills. That could instead be paid for using spending already allocated to the £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan.  The Warm Homes Plan is expected to pay for energy-efficiency measures, solar panels and electric heating for poorer households — but full details have not yet been finalized.  Cornwall Insight, a consultancy which forecasts future trends in the energy market, said Tuesday that cutting VAT on energy bills from 5 percent to zero at the budget could bring down annual bills by a further £80.  NET ZERO CONSENT  Ministers hope taking direct action on bills will shore up public confidence in the government’s wider energy and climate agenda, which includes a stretching target to almost fully decarbonize electricity by 2030 and hit net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  The goal in the long run is to reduce U.K. dependence on gas, the volatile price of which has done major damage to household finances in recent years.  But the problem for the government is that actions required to achieve that strategy are — in the short term at least — pushing up bills. The costs of investing in new clean power sources like offshore wind farms, along with the electricity lines and pylons required to clean up the energy system, are all adding to costs.  The independent National Energy System Operator expects charges on energy bills to pay for upgrading the power grid to hit £93.48 next year, a jump of £40. Further increases are anticipated as vast pylon-building projects gather steam.  “This is a really delicate time for prices and their link to the legitimacy of the energy transition,” said Adam Berman, director of policy and advocacy at Energy UK, speaking in September. If ministers don’t look at ways to lower bills now, he argued, “they will be lining themselves up for a very challenging start to next year.”  Opposition parties have seized on this weakness in the government’s energy strategy. The Conservatives are calling for a Cheap Power Plan (rather than a clean one). Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said it would tear up expensive government contracts with offshore wind projects and abandon net zero altogether.  “Bills are the number one public concern,” said Sam Alvis, director of energy at the IPPR. “Regardless of whether it’s to underpin support for the clean power mission, any government needs to show it’s heard that message from the public that they want action on cost. Without that sense of public buy-in now, there’s no hope for any longer term economic or energy reforms.”  A Treasury spokesperson confirmed action on the cost of living was a priority for Reeves but said: “We do not comment on budget speculation.” 

BELÉM, Brazil — Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) will arrive Friday at the COP30 climate summit — making him the sole U.S. federal representative at United Nations talks that the Trump administration is skipping. Whitehouse’s office said he will meet in the Amazonian port city of Belém, Brazil, with elected officials along with business and global climate leaders. It said his goal is to show that the U.S. public still broadly supports addressing climate change despite Trump abstaining from the negotiations. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a similar message earlier this week during his own swing through Belém. The White House has defended the U.S. absence from the talks, maintaining that the annual global climate gatherings work in the interests of rival countries like China. “President Trump will not allow the best interest of the American people to be jeopardized by the Green Energy Scam,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email last week. One GOP lawmaker, Sen. John Curtis of Utah, had planned to attend the summit but canceled because of the federal government shutdown. Whitehouse said he plans to harp on Trump and GOP policies that he cast as unpopular and responsible for boosting energy costs. “Amidst sinking approvals and a shellacking in the most recent elections, it’s no surprise the Trump administration is unwilling to defend the fossil fuel industry’s unpopular and corrupt climate denial lies on the global stage.” Whitehouse will participate in events Friday on offshore wind, shipping and non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gas emissions before delivering a keynote speech at a roundtable with elected officials from other nations hosted by the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. On Saturday, he will weigh in on methane rules, net-zero policies and the effect climate change has on oceans.

BRUSSELS — Lawmakers in the European Parliament on Thursday agreed to exempt more companies from green reporting rules after the center-right, right-wing and far-right groups allied to pass the EU’s first omnibus simplification package. The outcome illustrates the EPP’s willingness to abandon its traditional centrist allies and press ahead with the support of far-right groups to pass its deregulation agenda, setting a precedent for future lawmaking in Parliament for the rest of the mandate. The far-right Patriots and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups and some liberals voted in favor of the center-right European People’s Party’s proposed changes to the European Commission’s first omnibus simplification bill, which were also proposed by right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists. The changes would raise the threshold of corporate sustainability disclosure and due diligence rules so that even fewer companies will have to report on the environmental footprint. 382 MEPs voted in favor, 249 against and 13 abstained. The Parliament also voted to scrap mandatory climate transition plans for companies under EU due diligence rules, to force them to align their business models with the greenhouse gas emission reduction objectives of the Paris Agreement. It comes after months of intense negotiations in which the EPP, the center-left Socialists and Democrats and the centrist Renew group failed to reach a deal among themselves on how far to roll back the reporting rules. The sustainability omnibus bills reviews EU laws on environmental disclosure and supply chain transparency rules to reduce administrative burden for companies in a bid to boost their competitiveness. The Parliament will now enter in negotiations with the Council of the EU and the Commission to finalize a common position on the file.