Agence-France Presse (AFP) covers new analysis published by Carbon Brief which reveals that “surging renewable energy meant China’s carbon emissions fell in the first quarter of 2025 despite rapidly rising power demands, a key milestone in the country’s energy transition”. The newswire adds: “New wind, solar and nuclear capacity meant China’s CO2 emissions fell by 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter and 1% in the 12 months to March, said analyst Lauri Myllyvirta at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). China’s emissions have dipped before, but those reductions were driven by falling demand, such as during strict Covid lockdowns in 2022.” New Scientist also covers the analysis under the headline: “China’s CO2 emissions have started falling – is this finally the peak?”

In other China news, state news agency Xinhua reports that China and Colombia will “further expand cooperation in emerging fields”, such as wind energy and new energy vehicles (NEVs), jointly achieving “green and low-carbon transformation”. It quotes Chinese president Xi Jinping from a meeting with his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro, who has been visiting Beijing this week for the fourth ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum. Brasil de Fato reports that a total of $5bn in investments by Chinese companies in Brazil has been announced, including in “renewable energy, sustainable aviation fuel, green hydrogen, nuclear energy and automobile manufacturing”. Xinhua also reports that Xi and Chilean president Gabriel Boric have agreed to deepen cooperation in areas including “infrastructure and green minerals”. An editorial in the state-supporting newspaper Global Times says Chinese cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean will continue to expand in “cutting-edge” sectors, such as solar and NEVs.

Meanwhile, five Chinese companies are expected to invest almost $2bn in Ethiopia, mainly in “solar-cell manufacturing and mineral exploration”, notes Bloomberg. The Paper, a Shanghai-based news outlet, reports that China and Japan have held a “dialogue” on carbon reduction, pledging to “elevate bilateral cooperation on green and low-carbon development to new heights”. Huang Runqiu, China’s ecology and environment minister, has met with Abdulrahman Al-Fadley, Saudi Arabia’s minister of environment, water and agriculture, China Environment News reports, where they discussed topics such as the “green transition and desertification”. The China-Global South Project, a non-profit media outlet, publishes an analysis by the Boston University Global Development Policy Centre saying China’s “global power portfolio remains relatively carbon intensive”, adding that the scale of the shift to renewable energy in new investments remains “limited”.

Elsewhere, China Electric Power News reports that China has unveiled its legislative agenda for 2025, which will include reviewing a series of laws including a draft “electricity law” and several laws and regulations related to extreme weather. BJX News reports that “supply-demand imbalance” in China’s solar industry remains “severe”, with 35 of 96 listed solar companies still suffering net losses. China Energy Net says China’s solar industry is showing positive signs following the “unexpectedly positive” deescalation of the US-China trade war. Science and Technology Daily assesses the outlook for China’s energy storage industry following the market-oriented price reforms for renewable energy. 

Finally, a blog post on nationalist media outlet Guancha argues that China can “win the future energy revolution”, adding that whoever controls new energy technologies “sets the rules of the era”, as shown with the example of coal and oil.

Climate scientists had “expected 2025 to be cooler” than last year’s record temperatures, but it “seems the world is heading for a second year above 1.5C”, reports New Scientist. “The aim of limiting global warming to no more than 1.5C is slipping even further out of reach, as the latest climate data reveals global temperatures remain extremely high, with 2025 on course to rival 2024 as the hottest year on record”, the article notes. According to data from both the European Union’s climate change service, Copernicus, and US non-profit Berkeley Earth, April 2025 was the second-warmest April on record, explains New Scientist. Berkeley Earth puts April 2025’s average temperature at 1.49C above pre-industrial levels, just cooler than April 2024 by 0.07C, the article adds.

“Exceptionally low river flows” are predicted across the UK as a drought becomes more likely this summer, reports the Guardian. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) says “dry, warm weather is expected over the next three months, putting pressure on water resources”, it adds. This follows the driest spring in England since 1961, with northern regions in particular experiencing the driest start to a year in nearly a century, reports BBC News. Reservoir levels at the end of April were at 84% capacity, compared to 90% in 2022, the last drought year, reports the Times. The Financial Times carries a series of charts exploring the risks England faces in the “driest year this century”. Sky News reports on the impacts of heatwaves on pregnant women and newborn babies in the UK, with new research suggesting they are “sweltering through twice as many dangerously hot days”.

In other UK news, MPs are set to launch a private members’ bill designed to force major polluters to pay into a fund for flood defences and home insulation, reports the Guardian. “The bill is part of a broader movement by campaigners to ‘make polluters pay’, demanding that oil and gas companies, and those who benefit from fossil fuels, should take on more of the direct responsibility for tackling the climate crisis, rather than funding such measures from general taxation”, it adds. A new runway at Heathrow airport could boost annual CO2 emissions by 2.4m tons, according to government documents seen by Politico. The UK is now the biggest funder of solar-geoengineering research in the world, reports the Economist. The Financial Times questions whether “Britons can be persuaded to switch off when the wind doesn’t blow?” amid a raft of new time-of-use tariffs. The climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph covers what it claims to be an “uproar over heat pump noise fear” in energy secretary Ed Miliband’s constituency. (Carbon Brief’s heat-pump factcheck highlights that there are strict noise limits on heat pumps in the UK, which mean they can not be louder than 42 decibels, about the same as a refrigerator.) There is some continuing coverage of comments by Centrica CEO Chris O’Shea regarding the ability of renewable energy to cut bills, including in the Daily Mail.

Finally, energy minister Michael Shanks says that Great British Energy will not invest in any supply chains that involve “slave labour”, as measures to establish the state-own energy company are “on verge of becoming law”, reports the Press Association. [The law passed late yesterday.] A coalition of businesses, investors and climate groups have called on chancellor Rachel Reeves to move the cost of legacy renewable energy support schemes into general taxation to help save households £370 a year on bills, reports BusinessGreen.  

The share of electric vehicles (EVs) in the global car market is on track to accelerate past 40% by the end of the decade, reports BusinessGreen. According to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global EV sales are set to surpass 20m in 2025, following “another year of robust growth”, the article continues. In 2024, EV sales exceeded 17m, driving EV sales above 20% of the market for the first time, it adds. Over the first three months of 2025, sales were up 35% year-on-year, putting the sector on track for around a 25% share for the whole year, it notes. A separate article in BusinessGreen looks at what the IEA suggests is driving this growth, with “Chinese investment, improving affordability and new brands for new markets” all key factors. Despite the growth in the sector, the expected “hit to global oil demand” from EVs is now slightly smaller amid “faltering” US sales, reports Bloomberg. The IEA has reduced its forecast down to 5.4m barrels a day (mb/d) of oil consumption globally by 2030, down from 6mb/d previously, it adds. The sales share in the US “grows much more modestly” than previously expected, with 20% of sales expected to be EVs by the end of the decade, half the level forecast a year ago, the article notes. Global sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles jumped 29% in April year-on-year, reports EuroNews. New figures from Rho Motion show that, between January and April, 5.6m EVs were sold worldwide, it adds. “China and Europe were bright spots for the EV market in April, although sales dropped in North America, hit by Trump tariffs and uncertainty over green policies”, the article notes.

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has drawn criticism for his agency’s cancellation of billions of dollars of congressionally approved spending, reports the Associated Press. The funding had been allocated for addressing “chronic pollution in minority communities and jump-start clean energy programs across the country”, it adds. This included nearly 800 grants awarded under the former president Joe Biden’s administration via the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which directed the EPA to spend $3bn on projects to help low-income and minority communities, as well as $20bn to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects, it notes. Relatedly, on Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved portions of a GOP “megabill” for “clawing back billions of dollars in unspent funds from the Democrats’ 2022 climate law and speeding up permitting for fossil fuel projects”, reports Politico. The administration has also taken steps to rescind a Biden-era regulation that lowered fees for renewable energy projects on federal land, arguing it unfairly favoured the development of wind and solar facilities, reports Reuters.

In other US news, around 89 million people are at risk of summer power shortages, reports Bloomberg. From the upper Midwest to the Gulf Coast, people using three grids that span the central US are now deemed to be in an “elevated risk zone”, it adds. In the North American Electric Reliability Corp’s summer assessment, it warns that the “shutdown of older power plants, possible forced outages and high demand are contributing to potential deficits”, the article adds. The shortfall is driven in large part by the “steep increase in projected electricity demand”, which is up since last summer at more than double the rate it increased between 2023 and 2024, reports the Washington Post. “The US is now projected to need 10 gigawatts more electricity in the upcoming summer season than it did last summer – the equivalent amount of power it takes to keep the lights on in as many as 10 million homes”, it adds. In addition to the growing demand, generation is shifting from “around-the-clock power plants like coal and nuclear to intermittent supply from renewables”, reports Reuters. This is presenting new challenges during the summer months when the use of “energy-guzzling air-conditioning systems threatens to strip resources on the grid and cause power shortfalls”, it adds.

Elsewhere, severe weather is expected to hit the US over the weekend, reports the Washington Post. “An extensive, long-duration sequence of severe weather is set to unleash storms across parts of the central and eastern US”, it adds. Scientific American looks at how cuts to the National Weather Service could “cost lives”. Cuts made by the Trump administration are a “danger to public safety as tornadoes, hurricanes and heat loom this spring and summer”, it adds.

Denmark is looking at the possibility of lifting its 40-year ban on nuclear power, “as the Scandinavian wind energy powerhouse examines the best ways to avoid a similar blackout to last month’s outage in Spain and Portugal”, reports the Financial Times. The country’s energy and climate minister, Lars Aagaard, has told parliament that the government will look at the potential of new generation nuclear technologies, reports the Guardian.  Denmark is one of Europe’s more renewables-rich energy markets, with 80% of its electricity generated by renewables, it adds. Reuters quotes Aagaard, who asked parliament: “Can this technology complement what will be dominant in our country: solar and wind?…Can we say with confidence that this technology is safe? Where do we dispose of the nuclear waste? Are our authorities prepared if something goes wrong? And so on and so forth. We don’t have that knowledge, but we need it.” 

In other European news, an “abrupt loss” of power generation at a substation in Granada, followed by failures seconds later in Badajoz and Seville, triggered the blackout in Spain and Portugal on 28 April, reports Reuters. Spain’s energy minister Sara Aagesen said on Wednesday that these three failures, “whose cause has yet to be determined”, led to 2.2GW dropping of the system and triggering a series of grid disconnections, it adds. (Carbon Brief has examined what is currently known – and not known – about the blackout). The Times reports that Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica warned of the risk of blackouts two years ago. 

Mexico has warmed 3.2C since 1975, compared to the global temperature rise of 2C, according to Francisco Estrada, head of the research program on climate change at the country’s national university, cited by El País. Another researcher highlights the need for the country to include “climate action” into its development strategy, align the strategy with Mexico’s climate commitments and provide it with political backing and budget.

Separately, after record dengue-fever transmissions and deaths registered in 2024 across Latin America, researchers are studying the influence of climate change in the spread of the mosquito-borne disease, El Espectador reports. The newspaper adds that mosquitos in the region are adapting to other climates and changing their distribution, with Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama being at higher risk. Latin America also saw a record in “climate-related internal displacements” last year, with 15 million people displaced, La Nación reports. In Argentina, 90% of the 14,000 internal displacements in 2024 were due to heavy rains and floods, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. 

In other Latin American news, solar panels have the “potential to reduce electricity costs by up to 44% in the Amazon”, according to a recent study covered by Folha de São Paulo. The outlet adds that isolated systems, which are smaller and not connected to the national electricity system, account for 12% of renewable electricity production. 

Finally, energy losses in Latin America are a “break on the energy transition” because a “fifth of energy generated in the region never makes it to usage”, according to an Inter-American Development Bank report covered by Dialogue Earth.

Bloomberg opinion editor Mark Gongloff explores the Trump administration’s plans to “save” billions of dollars in government spending by repealing large parts of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). “Trashing the environment to pay for tax cuts is the fiscal-policy equivalent of having a violent loan shark spot you funds for an unaffordable Fifth Avenue shopping spree: it might feel good in the moment but will cost you dearly in the long run”, he writes. Any potential savings from cutting back on environmental policy will soon be “swamped”, not only by the “costs of global heating”, but also “higher power bills and a hit to the economic fortunes of voters in Republican districts”, he continues. Gongloff explores the make-up of IRA recipients in order to highlight that Republicans who hold power over the passing of such a rollback in policy also benefit from it. He concludes: “In the typical Republican lawmaker’s hierarchy of needs, avoiding attacks by Trump and his followers might outrank protecting a magical money machine that is funnelling investments and jobs to their districts. But the rest of us have different priorities, and we must keep making them clear before this tax cut becomes reality.”

In other comment, Financial Times economics commentator Chris Giles warns of a “cautionary tale” of well-meaning EV subsidies “taking the UK back to the 1970s”. In the Times, Robert Forrester, chief executive of Vertu Motors, argues that the “electric car revolution needs a spark”. In the New Statesman, journalist and broadcaster Andrew Marr argues that Labour needs to focus on the tone with which they discuss climate change as the “more down to Earth the conversation around climate, the harder it is to twist it into a culture war”. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian economist Ross Garnaut writes that “net-zero has been ground zero for energy ambition”. 

Elsewhere, Simon Mundy, the editor of the Financial Times’ Moral Money newsletter, asks: “When will companies start spending on climate adaptation?” And in Politico’s Power Switch newsletter, writer Arianna Skibell argues that “quitting the [Paris Agreement] was just the start” for the Trump administration. 

Implementing the Paris Agreement and shifting to a “healthier diet” can help to reduce the extent of breaching key planetary boundaries for climate change and other factors, a new study shows. However, even if these ambitions are met, several planetary boundaries – various thresholds that define a “safe operating space for humanity” – will still be breached in 2050. Analysing various future scenarios for these boundaries, the researchers conclude: “More effective policy measures will be needed to ensure we are living well within the planetary boundaries.”

New research finds that democratic countries are “outsourcing” environmental pollution abroad, contributing to their “superior environmental records” over other nations. The study authors analyse data on greenhouse gas emissions, pollution “offshoring” and democracy in 160 countries from 1990-2015. The findings suggest that democratic countries should shift climate efforts from “merely domestic” towards global impacts from their economic activity. They write: “Our findings clearly question the often-claimed ‘moral high ground’ of democracies vis-à-vis autocracies regarding environmental performance.”