References to the Great Barrier Reef and other sites in Australia have been removed from a UNESCO report at the request of the Australian government. The report was on world heritage sites that are at risk from climate change. The Department of Environment released a statement justifying its interference on grounds of tourism: “Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.” In the Guardian, columnist Graham Readfern criticises both Australia and UNESCO. Another Guardian comment piece says that many of the references were actually positive. The Guardian and the New York Times also carry news stories about the decision.

As much as half of the coral in the north parts of the Great Barrier Reef has been killed by mass bleaching in the last three months, while large parts of the southern areas have been left with only minor damage, Australian scientists have announced. The bleaching is the third to strike the reef in 18 years and the most extreme that scientists have recorded. Prof. Terry Hughes, the director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said that mortality rates were “off the scale”. The Daily Mail, The Guardian and the Washington Post also cover the story.

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have promised to scrap VAT on energy bills should Britain vote to leave the EU. Writing in the Sun, they say that the promise of £2bn in tax cuts can be funded out of the £11 billion a year saved from Britain’s contributions to the European Commission. The piece is also written by Labour’s Gisela Stuart. They say that “EU rules mean we cannot take VAT off those bills.” The BBC also covers the story. According to a story in the Financial Times, environmental issues are being left behind in the Brexit debate.

The Financial Times looks at whether Trump has the potential to “cancel” the Paris agreement on climate change, as he has said he might do. While there is a four year withdrawal period written into the agreement that could prevent Trump withdrawing the US overnight, he could still disrupt climate action through executive actions such as cutting funding for the Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times, meanwhile, says that “economic reality” stands in the way of Trump’s claims on energy policy. The New Scientist is less optimistic, saying that a Trump presidency threatens to “snuff out all hope” when it comes to climate change.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has refused to disclose details of the state aid arrangements for EDF to build a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. The refusal was in response to a freedom of information request. The information commissioner’s office backed the decision by saying that the disclosure would “adversely affect international relations, defence, national security or public safety”.

The Great Barrier Reef could elevate climate change to a vote-changing issue in Australia, according to an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald. The future of the reef affects many people personally in Australia in a way that mentions of climate change do not. Yet the two major political parties are still “playing politics” with the future of the reef, says the newspaper.

The Observer carries an editorial criticising slow progress on the Hinkley Point nuclear project, off the back of energy minister Andrea Leadsom’s comments that there are excellent bat houses and hedgehog tunnels at the site — but as of yet, no investment decision. It says: “But the Hinkley show is becoming an embarrassment. The project is expensive, uses unproven technology and its builder is a disunited and over-borrowed company that requires constant financial assurances from an ever-changing cast of politicians. The UK government should set EDF a deadline and be ready to enforce it. We can do better – much better – than Hinkley.”

Major oil companies held their first annual meetings last week in the wake of the Paris deal, where they attempted to varying degrees to understand what this means for their industry. The fact that the Paris commitment means that fossil fuel companies will either have to find ways to stop emissions from their products, switch to renewables or go out of business was argued over without conclusive result, says a Financial Times editorial. Oil companies should “embrace a future of long-term decline,” it says.

In a long essay for the London Review of Books, author and activist Naomi Klein looks at the concept of “othering” and how it has allowed climate change to take place. Othering allows expulsion, land theft, occupation and invasion to happen. She writes: “Because the whole point of othering is that the other doesn’t have the same rights, the same humanity, as those making the distinction. What does this have to do with climate change? Perhaps everything.”

Traditional bottom-up methods to assess countries’ emissions of sulphur dioxide are failing to capture nearly 40 sources of the gas, according to a new study. These missing sources, mostly scattered throughout the developing world, add up to around 6-12% of the global anthropogenic source, leading to discrepancies in some regions between actual and reported emissions of a factor of three.

A new modelling study shows that adding alkalinity to the surface ocean could remove 940 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, bringing stabilising CO2 at RCP4.5 levels under RCP8.5 emissions and offsetting about 1.5C of warming this century. But the cost of such climate benefits would be unprecedented consequences for ocean biochemistry and marine life, particularly in the Arctic and tropical oceans.

Shale gas developers can reduce the environmental impacts of drilling sites at relatively low cost, according to a new modelling analysis. On average, 38% of potential damage to forests, wetlands, rare species and streams can be avoided by giving more thought to infrastructure planning, incurring a 20% increase in development costs.