change. clearly it is a popular policy by the public and heading up to the next election it would be a strange decision for the government to row back on anything with public support. can the government have it both ways, say yes to granting licences for oil and gasp projects but at the same time it commitments to net zero? new licences for the north sea is not a change in government policy, we were expecting to see more. the oil and industry's estimates show production will continue to decline in the north sea no matter what the government policy is it simply because there is not as much gas and oil as 50 years ago when we started extracting. what is left in the north sea is mostly oil. this is mostly exported, so there is little benefit to our bills from more extraction and in a cost—of—living crisis bills are a strong priority for the public. it is a strange decision to approve more when it won't help with our bills because they can't move the dial on internationally set prices and it will mean oil and gas companies make more money from exporting to the highest bidder. many people will be confused by this given we are told we should be investing in renewables, that some fossilfuels investing in renewables, that some fossil fuels are still subsidised by the uk government, at odds with advice internationally. yet the government says it will plough ahead with licences. absolutely, there is a loophole in the windfall tax where the taxpayer is subsidising more north sea oil extraction of oil and to the tune of 91p back for every £1 they spend. everyone will have seen the huge profits from the companies, and thinking that is not the best approach. there are subsidies which are questionable at the time of heat waves and wildfires in the world. the key is this won't bring down bills any way, it will give more money to oil and gas uk companies so it won't help with bills or our energy security. that could be interesting ahead of a general election year. talk to me about carbon capture, relatively new technology being deployed on a growing scale. what difference does it make? carbon capture and storage technology is a new technology, all the experts agree we will need some as we head up agree we will need some as we head up to 2050 and net zero for those hard to treat areas like manufacturing where there could be residual carbon emissions. the scale of how much we will need and how much it will cost are still unknown. the uk is positioning itself as a leader when it comes to this technology and we have some natural advantages because of our caverns, the geology of the north sea. but it is a gamble to take taxpayer billions and pumped back into a technology we are not sure will be practical, cost—effective. the government is clearly backing it. that could have impacts for green investment. we have the inflation reduction act in the us and a similar package in europe. but uk is not at the table when it comes to green investment. hopefully this will be a signal of things to come. good to get your thoughts, thank you. better—than—expected data out of the euro zone this morning has signalled the region returned to growth in the second quarter of this year. the bloc�*s economy expanded by 0.3%, compared to expectations of 0.2%. and it was better than the zero growth clocked in the first quarter. but the eurozone�*s biggest economy, germany, registered no growth, and italy suffered a contraction. in a comforting sign for the ecb however, inflation eased slightly. holger schmieding is chief economist at berenberg. what do you make of these numbers, because there is an anaemic growth but it is the detail that tells the real story. yes, the details tell us the story there are significant differences within the eurozone, and tell us the story growth in the second quarter was insulative artificially by the unusual volatility in irish data. without that it would have been 0.2% in the quarter for the eurozone which is better than the previous quarter. unfortunately the outlook is not that positive as global manufacturing is facing a downturn and europe exports a of manufactured goods. germany still seems to be the outlier when other economies are out modest growth. why are the pressures are so different, is it about energy costs? costs ? partly a bout costs? partly about energy costs, jenny was more exposed to the russian curtailment of gas supplies than almost all other european economies. on top of that, in terms of what is now the oncoming problem, the inventory correction, the downturn inventory correction, the downturn in manufacturing, germany is the powerhouse of europe so it's manufacturing is facing a crisis which it does on a global scale. germany is being hit harder. let which it does on a global scale. germany is being hit harder. let us talk about inflation _ germany is being hit harder. let us talk about inflation heading - germany is being hit harder. let us talk about inflation heading in - germany is being hit harder. let us talk about inflation heading in the i talk about inflation heading in the right direction and coming down easing pressure on the european central bank. but in the summer, tourism keeps inflation high, explain that for us. we have seen services in imitation is sticky to an extent because after all these years of the pandemic, we want to go on holiday, we want to have a good time, we want to go to restaurants if we can afford it at all. as a result prices for many services, tourism —related services, including travel, are high and continue to rise. this is probably only a summer phenomenon and i expect this in to ease overwinter. for now this part of inflation is sticky and the european central bank won't be too happy about that. as always, good to talk to you, thank you for your thoughts. to china now, and we've seen further evidence the country's economy is under pressure. their latest manufacturing figures once again show weakness in, what is, the world's second largest economy. forjuly, the purchasing managers' index came in at 49.3. any figure below 50 shows contraction and that means for four months in a row the manufacturing sector has got smaller. for some economists, alarm bells are ringing about the outlook for china, but officials remain confident this is a short—term blip. only last month, the chinese premier li qiang said his country was still on track to reach its annual growth target of around 5%, a modest target after china grew just 3% last year, one of the weakest showings in nearly half a century. one economist told us the country's recovery is uneven. i think this set of data tells us that the recovery is felt very unevenly across different enterprises. larger enterprises faring fairly well, smaller ones, not so much. and the most concerning part for me is that the fact the outlook, particularly for new orders and new export orders, also look relatively weak out of the manufacturing's pmi in particular. on the services side, i think what we are seeing on this set of data is the fact that actually consumers are not spending, are not confident enough in spending as much as we thought. so to come back to your question, i think still relatively concerned in terms of the outlook. the good news is that there has been a whole slew of policies to support the economy over the past week and probably more to come in the coming weeks. cern is one of the most famous centres for science in the world. on the border of switzerland and france, its high energy physics research has helped reveal the secrets of our existence. but how does it work? well, bbc click was able to get access to the facility, and meet with its engineers to look at the cutting edge robots used there. i'm eloise matheson. i'm a mechatronics engineer at cern. welcome to the cern�*s robotics workshop. this is cern bot 2, one of our modular robots that we use regularly for inspection, maintenance and repair tasks in the accelerator complex. it has these meccano wheels so it can move side to side very easily. so we might send robots to an area where a human might not want to go — either due to a risk of oxygen depletion or gas leaks or even if there's presence of radiation. it's got lots of different sensors on it. mostly we use cameras. this is to give what we call tele presence, so the operator has a more intuitive way of controlling and interacting with the robot. so here you're looking at the beginnings of the prototype of the fcc robot. this could be where the future of cern is going, to build a new accelerator that will be 100 kilometres in circumference. in that sort of accelerator environment, robots will be really important — both as tools you can use for inspection, maintenance and repair, but also as first responders. so this is a novel robotic system we're building that will inspect the inside of radio frequency cavities, that give acceleration to the beam. it's really important that the inner surface is perfectly machined. and so we've built this robotic system to take thousands of close—up photos using a liquid lens camera. ok, so here you have crane bot and you can imagine that this robot's really useful if we need to access an area that's very cluttered. so when you drop it down from a crane, you're hanging off cables. so of course you have sway and momentum from everything going around. but you have these two arms and it's a bit like when you're human and using your arms to balance yourself. so the arms can actually stop that swaying motion. in other news. mortgage approvals in the uk rose unexpectedly injune despite further rises in interest rates. bank of england figures show net mortgage approvals rose to 511,700 from 51,100 in may. analysts had expected the housing market to slow in a month when high inflation figures led the central bank to hike interest rates to 5% — the highest level in 15 years. hong kong's economy grew by 1.5% in the second quarter year—on—year, much lower figure than the 3.5% forecast by economists. the official gdp data comes as the chinese territory attempts to revive its pandemic—hit economy by attracting more visitors as well as investors. a hong kong government spokesperson blamed low exports and weak demand for goods for the disappointing figure. hello from the bbc sport centre. let's start at the women's world cup where it is crunchtime for hosts australia. we saw co—hosts new zealand eliminated yesterday — the matildas need to beat canada in melbourne to be sure of progression to the knockout stages. star striker sam kerr is only fit enough for the bench but they're currently managing without her, they lead 2—0 nearing half—time thanks to two goals from hayley rasso. nigeria need to avoid defeat against already—eliminated republic of ireland to go through, it's currently goalless there. japan showed why they're among the favourites by thrashing spain 4—0 to finish top of group c. the 2011 champions were 3—0 up at half—time, with two goals from hinata miyazawa. substitute mina tanaka rounded off the scoring in the second half. japan will stay in wellington where they'll play norway in the last 16 on saturday. despite the heavy defeat spain still make it through as runners—up — they'll play switzerland in the first knockout round. here's how group c finishes. zambia end up third after their first women's world cup win, a 3—1victory against costa rica. two—time defending champions the usa play portugal on tuesday in group e, with qualification still not guaranteed. they've dominated women's international football in recent years and boast global stars such as alex morgan and megan rapinoe. but, after a 1—1 draw with the netherlands in the group, there's a sense that defending the title could be one