The federal government of Canada is giving its provinces two years to adopt CO2 pricing before it steps in, reports the Hill. Prime minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian parliament on Monday that provinces would have to meet a federal carbon “floor price” by 2018. The move is designed to help Canada meet its pledge to the Paris Agreement on climate change, reports the Associated Press. The price would rise to C$50 per tonne by 2022, reports Carbon Pulse. The 10 Canadian provinces will be able to choose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade. Energy-producing provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan are unhappy at the move, reports Reuters.

The Paris Agreement on climate change is to enter force in November, reports Reuters, which says it is expected to gain enough ratifications this week to pass the legal threshold. However, the agreement faces challenges over implementation and enforcement, Reuters adds. EU ratification is expected on Wednesday, reports ClimateWire. In the US, there is a new bipartisan push for climate action in light of the Paris deal, reports DeSmog. There was no mention of the Paris deal, or climate change, in British prime minister Theresa May’s speech to the Conservative Party conference this week, reports DeSmog UK.

“Electricity generated by solar panels on fields and homes outstripped Britain’s ageing coal power stations over the past six months in a historic first”, reports the Guardian, covering new Carbon Brief analysis. The trend will not continue into winter, the paper notes, because of solar’s seasonal nature. The Solar Trade Association tells the Guardian the news is “a valuable milestone on the road to renewables overtaking fossil fuels”.

India’s largest power generator is expanding its solar plans while slowing down on coal over concerns that renewables will be cheaper, reports Bloomberg. The firm will increase its existing target to build 10 gigawatts (GW) of solar, while also buying power from another 15GW. The firm says it has no plans to buy more land for new coal capacity, given it already has a large pipeline of plants under construction.

The UK could treble the amount of solar power on the system without pushing up costs, says the Press Association, covering a report prepared for the Solar Trade Association by Aurora Energy Research. The current cost of handling the variability of solar output is £1.30 per megawatt hour (MWh), the report says, adding less than 2% to the cost of solar. If solar capacity rose from today’s 12 gigawatts (GW) to 40GW combined with batteries, there would be net benefits to the power system, it adds.

India has one of the world’s most aggressive programmes to build new coal plants the world has ever seen, say Ashish Fernandes and Jai Krishna on Greenpeace’s EnergyDesk blog. The Indian government says the plants are needed to supply power to the 300 million Indians that have none, yet some government sources admit that no new plants are needed at least for the next three years to 2019, they write, adding that Greenpeace analysis extends that timeline to 2022 and beyond. Some 94% of the new coal capacity under construction will be “lying idle”, they say.

CO2 levels in the atmosphere above Mauna Loa in Hawaii passed the symbolic figure of 400 parts per million last week, writes John Schwartz in the New York Times, a level that is likely to be exceeded “for the indefinite future”. Yet some of the reaction to the news has been “to put it mildly, crazed”, writes Schwartz, citing headlines including “Goodbye World: We’ve Passed the Carbon Tipping Point for Good”.

Clean technology costs have fallen by between 41 and 94% in the past seven years, says Dana Nuccitelli for the Guardian, referring to US Department of Energy figures. The report “paints a bright picture for our prospects to cut carbon pollution”, Nuccitelli writes, saying it is “good news for doom and gloom environmentalists”.

Currently, the distribution of the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, a carrier of West Nile virus, extends across the low latitudes to parts of North Africa and Western Europe. A new study examining how the risk of such diseases will change under future climate change finds the mosquito’s range extends to southern Australia, though remains most prevalent between 30°S and 30°N. Models differ in anticipating potential for distribution in North and Central Africa, southern Asia, central USA, and southeastern Europe.