ExxonMobil is expanding its research collaboration with FuelCell Energy, a firm that claims to be able to reduce the costs and energy penalty of capturing power plant CO2 emissions, reports the Financial Times. The move “could be interpreted…as an attempt to improve [Exxon’s] public image”, says the New York Times’s coverage. The carbon capture concept involves fuel cells that concentrate power plant CO2 while also generating more than enough electricity to run the process. Some 400 megawatts (MW) of fuel cells would be needed to capture 90% of the CO2 from a 500MW coal plant, according to FuelCell Energy’s own estimates.

El Niño and climate change have both contributed to the wildfires devastating Alberta, according to experts cited by BBC News. Temperatures in the region are 1C above average, it notes. The New York Times also points to a warm spring and “years of policies that left forests ripe for burning”. The fires have caused Canadian oil prices to surge as tar sands production sites are closed down, reports Reuters. Mail Online carries aerial photos of the fires, showing the huge scale of the disaster.

Electric car maker Tesla has announced ambitious plans to build half a million cars a year by 2018, reports Mail Online. An article for ClimateWire asks if the firm can reach its new target. Meanwhile China says half of new government cars will be “new energy cars” within five years, reports Reuters. Separately, Mail Online reports that GM and car-sharing service Lyft will trial self-driving electric Chevy Bolt taxis “within a year”.

The UK’s capacity market, designed to ensure sufficient electricity supplies, will be brought forward by a year, the government confirmed today. Auctions will be held on 1 September to contract supplies for winter 2017/18.

Plans to build hundreds more coal-fired power stations in Asia would be a “disaster for the planet”, says World Bank president Jim Yong Kim. China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam account for three-quarters of new coal stations planned for the next five years, the Guardian says. If all go ahead, it would leave the world unable to avoid 2C of warming, according to a World Bank official cited by the Guardian.

Seven oil and gas majors could increase their value by $100bn if they invest in line with a 2C warming limit, according to a new study covered by Inside Climate News. Avoiding future investments in high-cost oil exploration such as tar sands and deep sea projects would create more value for oil firms’ shareholders than pushing ahead, the study suggests.

“Cities account for most of the world’s carbon emissions, and their share will continue to increase as cities increase in size,” write the mayors of New York, Paris and Rio de Janeiro. How cities grow in the coming years will be a key factor in reducing emissions and the worst impacts of climate change, they say. But in order for cities to take steps towards low-carbon infrastructure and “climate-friendly” urban growth, national governments must empower them: “By giving cities the power to act, and putting them at the center of national economic strategies, we can protect our planet while building a better future for the increasing number of people who call cities home.”

Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa, nominated to become the new UN climate chief, is profiled by Climate Home’s Ed King. Espinosa, a career diplomat since 1981 who is fluent in four languages, she was one of the favourites to replace Christiana Figueres. It was Espinosa that gavelled through the Cancun Accord, which restored faith in the international climate process after the failure at Copenhagen.

A study showing CO2 increases have contributed to the planet getting greener “ought to be a cause for great joy”, argues climate sceptic author Bjorn Lomborg in an article for the Telegraph. The print edition of the paper carries the piece under the headline: “Let’s hear the good news on climate change”. Lomborg also says that reduced cold deaths will outweigh rising heat deaths and that rising rainfall “is likely beneficial”. The research on global greening “should be seen as a warning light, scientists told Carbon Brief. A June 2015 study “strongly counters” the argument, repeated here by Lomborg, that warmer temperatures will see reduced cold deaths outweighing a rising death toll from heatwaves, Carbon Brief found. You can read more about research on monsoon rains and climate change in another Carbon Brief article.

The amount of erosion caused in a river during a flood isn’t simply a case of more rain bringing more erosion, a new study says. Researchers analysed the channel shape and flow of 186 rivers across the United States. Their findings suggests that while river erosion does increase as flood size increases, the impact is most pronounced for moderate floods. River channels actually adjust to the conditions of major floods, the researchers find, thus “blunting” the impact of extreme rainfall events on river channel shape.