Here are the stories making the business headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
Storm Debi: Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire residents face 11 hours of rain as Met Office issue new yellow weather warning
More heavy rain has been forecast across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire just weeks after Storm Babet caused flooding across the country.
The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for 11 hours of rain in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as Storm Debi sweeps in on Monday.
The warning comes into effect from 10am and is due to end at 9pm.
It covers Stonehaven, Inverbervie, Ballater, Inverurie and Turriff.
Royal Mail fined £5.6m after quarter of first-class post arrives late
Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by regulator Ofcom for a “significant” failure to meet its postal delivery targets.
Ofcom imposed the penalty after an investigation found Royal Mail fell short on targets for both first and second-class mail deliveries across the 2022 to 2023 financial year.
Only 73.7% of first-class mail was delivered within one working day across the year, against a target of 93%, while 90.7% of second-class mail was delivered within three working days, compared with the target of 98.5%.
Customers who pay for first-class stamps are promised next-day delivery, while Royal Mail says post sent second-class will be completed within two to three working days.
China’s carbon emissions set for structural decline from next year
China’s carbon emissions could peak this year before falling into a structural decline for the first time from next year after a record surge in clean energy investments, according to research.
Emissions from the world’s most polluting country have rebounded this year after the Chinese government dropped its Covid restrictions in January, according to analysis undertaken for Carbon Brief.
However, this rebound in fossil fuel demand emerged alongside a historic expansion of the country’s low-carbon energy sources, which was far in excess of policymakers’ targets and expectations.
Beijing’s solar and wind installation targets for the year were met by September, according to the report, and the market share of electric vehicles is already well ahead of the government’s 20% target for 2025.
Ofcom chair calls for review of ‘regressive’ BBC licence fee
The head of Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, has said the government should look again at how the BBC is funded, and called for the national broadcaster to strengthen its governance and complaints mechanisms.
Michael Grade, who had served as the chair of the BBC, described the licence fee that funds the BBC as a “regressive tax” that meant he would pay no more than a “single mom with three kids in a rented room”.
The former ITV and Channel 4 boss added that one of the “big” questions for the next BBC charter review was whether the BBC should be allowed to compete for advertising revenue against commercial broadcasters, which are already seeing a sharp decline in this income.
The BBC needed to be more “independent and transparent” in its approach to how complaints are handled, he added, something that Ofcom has “pushed quite hard”. The government is expected to overhaul the BBC’s complaints system as part of a forthcoming review.