After a week of actions and more than a thousand arrests, climate protesters in London have signalled they are willing to call a halt to the demonstrations “provided they can open talks with Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, and other political leaders”, reports the Financial Times. Extinction Rebellion (XR) have said they would promise not to return to specified occupied areas if the mayor accelerated the implementation of a “declaration of climate and ecological emergency” and considered setting up an assembly. “They first hope to secure agreement from Mr Khan and the police to continue their protests at Old Palace Yard outside the Houses of Parliament, a new site for them, in return for clearing other demonstrations,” the FT adds. In an email to demonstrators, XR leaders say they are switching from “disruptive tactics” to “political negotiations”, reports the Daily Telegraph. Farhana Yamin, the group’s political circle coordinator, said that “being able to ‘pause’ a rebellion shows that we are organised and a long-term political force to be reckoned with”, reports the Independent. The Guardian also reported that XR were intending to hold a “people’s assembly” at Marble Arch yesterday to decide what will happen in the coming week. Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s environment analyst, looks at how ministers might “win over the protestors”.

Protests at various sites throughout London and beyond have caused disruption over the past week. More than 1,000 people have been arrested and 53 have been charged since the demonstrations began last Monday, notes BBC News and Reuters. Hundreds of extra officers were drafted in to help clear protestors over the weekend, says the FT, after Sadiq Khan urged the police to “take a firm stance” against protesters, reports the Guardian. Rest days and annual leave were cancelled, notes the Press Association. The police have cleared demonstration sites at Oxford Street and Waterloo Bridge, reports the FT, while a sanctioned protest continues at Marble Arch. The police say they have a “robust” plan in place ahead of protests in Parliament Square today as parliament returns after the Easter recess, reports the Press Association. Last Thursday, the police had removed protestors who had glued themselves to a Docklands Light Railway carriage at Canary Wharf, reports BBC News and the Daily Telegraph. (Three people have pleaded not guilty to causing criminal damage and have been remanded in custody, says the Independent.) A small protest at Heathrow airport did not disrupt road traffic, notes Sky News.

Scotland Yard said the protestors were diverting police officers from “core local duties”, reports BBC News. The police also defended not “using tactics such as containment, physically and forcibly stopping the protesters from moving around”, reports the Guardian. (The FT details some of these criticisms.) In a statement, Scotland Yard said: “The simple answer is we have no legal basis to do so. These are peaceful protesters; while disruptive, their actions are not violent towards police, themselves or other members of the public.” Co-founder of the group, Gail Bradbrook, defended the group’s actions on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said she had “never known an operation, a single operation, in which over 700 people have been arrested”, reports the Press Association. She also urged protestors to “please, go to Marble Arch where you can protest lawfully, stop your unlawful protests, and if you don’t want to go to Marble Arch then go home”, reports the Guardian.

Yesterday, dozens of protestors staged a “die-in” at London’s Natural History Museum to raise awareness of the mass extinction of species, reports the Guardian. The demonstrators – some wearing red facepaint, veils and robes – gathered underneath the museum’s blue-whale skeleton and remained to listen to an impromptu classical music performance. A museum spokesperson said the “peaceful protest…took place without incident”, reports the Daily Telegraph. Plans to hold a picnic on the Westway A-road by Edgware Road Underground station were scrapped, says the Press Association. Dame Emma Thompson addressed protestors from a pink boat in Oxford Street on Friday, reports Reuters and another piece in the Indy. She told them that her generation had “failed young people”, reports BBC News. (The boat has since “been towed away by police after five days at the heart of the climate demonstrations in London”, says the Press Association.) Thompson defended her decision to fly over from the US to attend the protests, reports another piece in BBC News. Extinction Rebellion has several other “celebrity supporters”, says the Press Association, including novelist Margaret Atwood and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. Etienne Stott, a canoe slalom gold medallist at the London Olympics, was one of those arrested over the weekend, reports the Daily Telegraph. And naturalist Chris Packham urged other television presenters to join the protests, reports the Sunday Times.

Meanwhile, Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg gave a speech to protestors gathered at Marble Arch on Sunday night, reports the Guardian. “We are now facing an existential crisis,“ she said: “And for way too long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything. We will make sure that politician’s will not get away with it for any longer.” The Guardian has a video of the speech. Thunberg spoke to the Press Association afterwards and told Reuters that she might be “very naive” for wanting to “fix the climate and the ecological crisis so that everyone lives in peace”. Thunberg also spoke at a panel debate in London yesterday, notes the Guardian, which co-hosted the event, where she agreed with a questioner (Age of Stupid director Franny Armstrong) who asked whether a general strike should now be considered. Thunberg was also interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning. Thunberg is due to meet environment secretary Michael Gove, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas during her visit to Parliament later today, says the Independent and the Times.

Elsewhere, the head of one of Europe’s biggest ethical investment funds has told BBC Radio that the protests were “just the beginning” – and business leaders have written a letter to the Times in support of the protests, calling for an “urgent redesign” of global industry. The Daily Telegraph compares the Extinction Rebellion protests with the Occupy London movement from 2011, while the Independent looks at “how Extinction Rebellion protesters reclaimed the streets – and injected fresh energy into the climate movement”. The Press Association has photos from the continuing protests.

High temperatures saw records broken for Easter Monday in all four nations of the UK, BBC News reports. The Met Office says England reached the highest temperature with 25C recorded at Heathrow, Northolt and Wisley, followed by 24.2C in Kinlochewe in Scotland, 23.6C in Cardiff and 21.4C in Armagh. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland also enjoyed their warmest Easter Sunday on record, says the Guardian. Saturday was also the UK’s hottest day of the year so far with 25.5C recorded in Gosport, Hampshire. MailOnline has lots of pictures of people on beaches.

Soaring temperatures saw several acres of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire catch fire on Saturday, reports another BBC News article. Some residents in the area have been evacuated, says the Daily Telegraph. Three men have been arrested in connection with the fire, reports the Sun. There is a second fire 35 miles away on Marsden Moor, notes the Independent, which was likely caused by a barbecue. Reuters also covers the fires.

The Easter weekend also saw Britain break its record for the longest continuous period without generating electricity from coal, reports another BBC Newsarticle. The National Grid said that the coal-free period lasted more than 90 hours before coming to an end yesterday afternoon. It is the longest period since the industrial revolution and breaks the previous record set in April 2018 of 76 hours and 10 minutes.

Cuadrilla says it is “ready” to frack a second well for shale gas at a site near Blackpool, reports the Financial Times. Time is running short for the company because its planning permit for the site at Preston New Road in Lancashire, north-west England, expires at the end of November. It has partially fracked a first well, but was forced to suspend work on a number of occasions last year when it triggered earth tremors. In a letter sent in December to the chief executive of the UK’s oil and gas regulator – obtained under a Freedom of Information request – Cuadrilla’s chief executive urged the regulator to carry out a review of the current rules and make fresh recommendations on safe seismic limits by the end of March. Despite not securing a rule change so far, Cuadrilla told the FT it had “recently completed a work programme designed to ensure that our wells remain ready for further hydraulic fracturing”. The Independent also covers the story. In an opinion piece, Robert Shrimsley – editorial director of the FT – says “time is running out for the UK’s fracking industry”.

The Trump administration is demanding that countries no longer import any oil from Iran, reports the Financial Tines. The US is removing waivers from US sanctions on crude granted to some of Iran’s largest customers, meaning nations including India and China would face penalties if they continued to import Iranian oil. In a briefing yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the aim was to halt Iran’s exports entirely as it continues to pressure Tehran to curtail its nuclear programme, ballistic missile tests and support for conflicts in Syria and Yemen, reports Reuters. The waivers are due for renewal on 2 May, notes the Hill. President Trump said Saudi Arabia and other oil producing nations could “more than make up” for any drop in Iranian oil supplies, says another Reuterspiece. However, oil prices rose sharply to their highest levels since November, says Axios. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ navy warned that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz – the only sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the open ocean – if the US goes ahead with its plans, reports a third Reuters article. Turkey has criticised the plans, says a fourth article. The FT has an explainer on the implications of the end to the sanction waivers. Axioscarries a comment piece that notes that “Trump’s team still has higher priorities” than taking Iran’s oil exports down to zero, including “reaching a trade deal with China, strengthening ties with India and managing domestic gasoline prices”. And Politico says Trump “gambles with gas prices as he goes after Iran”.

In related news, the Guardian reports that Trump issued an Earth Day message yesterday “that omitted any mention of climate change or the cavalcade of environmental threats posed by deforestation, species loss and plastic pollution”.

Sir David Attenborough has “issued his strongest statement yet on the threat posed to the world by climate change”, reports BBC environment correspondent Matt McGrath. In the BBC documentary “Climate Change – The Facts”, which was aired on Thursday evening, the veteran broadcaster outlined the scale of the crisis facing the planet. “In the 20 years since I first started talking about the impact of climate change on our world, conditions have changed far faster than I ever imagined,” he said. The documentary lays out the science behind climate change, the impact it is having right now and the steps that can be taken to fight it. A separate BBC News article summarises the reviews of the documentary from different outlets, which include a five-star rating in the Daily Telegraphand four-stars in the Times. The Evening Standard says the programme “makes for grim but essential viewing”. BBC News has another piece looking at “where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help”. The documentary is available to watch on the BBC website.

Not everyone was impressed, though. Mail on Sunday writer David Rose says Attenborough presented “an alarmist argument derived from a questionable use of evidence, whose nuances he has ignored”. A section of the programme showing an orangutan fleeing loggers in Borneo as land was cleared to produce palm oil “left out the final stage of the argument”, says Rose: “Half of all the millions of tons of palm oil sent to Europe is used to make ‘biofuel’, thanks to an EU directive stating that, by 2020, 10% of forecourt fuel must come from ‘renewable’ biological sources”. And the Spectator’s Ross Clark looks at “David Attenborough’s climate change show didn’t tell you”.

A new study suggests that climate change has exacerbated global inequality, causing the most economic harm to those who did the least to cause it, reports InsideClimate News. The research indicates that some countries in cold climates, including Canada, Norway and Russia, likely benefited economically from global warming in recent decades, while poorer countries closer to the equator suffered economic losses. Overall, the “gap in per capita income in the richest and poorest countries is 25 percentage points larger than it would have been without climate change”, says the New York Times. The Independent also covers the study.

Greenland, home to Earth’s second-largest ice sheet, has lost ice at an accelerating pace in the past several decades, reports the Washington Post. A new study that uses a half-century of data shows “a nearly sixfold increase that could contribute to future sea-level rise”. The researchers estimate that Greenland went from adding about 51bn tonnes of ice into the ocean between 1980 to 1990, to 286bn tonnes between 2010 and 2018. Of about 14 millimeters of sea level rise caused by Greenland since 1972, half took place in the past eight years, says the Hill.

The Extinction Rebellion protests have triggered a near-unprecedented level of comment about climate change across the UK media over the long Easter weekend. It broadly splits into two halves – supportive and critical – and follows, as expected, the politics of each publication. An editorial in the Observer says the protesters have “enjoyed real success…forcing climate change into the headlines when it would otherwise have been ignored”. But it adds that “the case for action will in the end need to be made in a much broader way that appeals to voters from across the political spectrum”. Writing in the Guardian, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas says the protesters “are showing moral courage at a time when too many politicians are taking us backwards”. She adds that, combined with the impact of Greta Thunberg’s on-going visit to the UK, the “climate movement has broken into the mainstream – and it is here to stay”. Guardian columnist Polly Tonybee notes the good timing of the protests as they have taken place during a pause in the Brexit drama, as well as when the BBC aired its new Attenborough film about climate change: “Compared to Brexit rage and fury, climate protesters are the soul of peace and goodwill.” She adds: “What’s needed is a translation of fear into acceptable politics: the protesters are wise to demand a citizens’ assembly to examine all the evidence and gain public consent for what needs to be done outside the left-right battle-lines of conventional politics. The government should seize on that.” Another Guardiancolumnist, Matthew d’Ancona, writes: “What is certain is that the shift is real. For many of my generation, all this will be a rude awakening. But, like previous generations, we invited it in our failures, omissions and inaction. What can I say? A change is gonna come.” Writing in the Financial Times, Camilla Cavendish – senior fellow at Harvard University and former head of the Downing Street Policy Unit – argues that, while she is supportive, the protestors need to be careful to tailor their message: “If the new movement can focus on climate emergency, and not mind whether it is capitalists or communists who find ways to keep fossil fuels in the ground, preserve rainforests, achieve a quantum leap in battery storage, and gear up carbon capture and storage, it deserves to gain a much wider hearing.” Marianne Taylor, features writer and columnist for Scotland’s Herald argues that it is “easy to sneer” at the protestors, but “ the message itself is valid and deserves credence”. Gaby Hinsliff makes a similar point in her Guardian column. Writing for the Conversation, Alexander Hensby, a sociology lecturer, says “for now, Extinction Rebellion activists will consider recent events as a runaway success. They have gained visibility, traction, and have at least temporarily steered media attention away from Brexit. Most importantly, they have put climate change squarely in the middle of public conversation.” Janice Turner in the Times says: “Some of its aims, such as abandoning fossil fuels by 2025, may be unachievable — and Britain’s emissions record is good — but why not try harder? If I were Theresa May, I’d consent, as an experiment, to the group’s third demand, for a Citizens’ Assembly on climate change.” Nada Farhoud, consumer features and environment editor of the Daily Mirror, argues that “we must be wary of glorifying arrests and incarceration as the only valid way of engaging with a movement. This important issue should not be limited to a small group of wealthy activists who can afford the expense and time.” In the Sun, protestor Piers Sadler writes a letter from his prison cell following his arrest: “I am sorry for the disruption caused to local businesses and commuters. I also apologise to the Metropolitan Police for the diversion of resources…I ask that you, the people, become properly informed about climate change. I also ask that Government, businesses and public bodies start taking transformative action now to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero.” The Times, meanwhile, interviews Gail Bradbrook, one of Extinction Rebellion’s founders. She says: “Two different people who happen to know Theresa May’s advisers tell me she knows how bad it is. Essentially, they said, ‘They know that you’re right and they need people like you to create the social movement to give them permission to move forwards.’”

The rest of the comment, predominantly in right-leaning publications, is largely negative and often sneering in tone. Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail calls the protestors “lunatics” and “clowns”. Julie Burchill in the Sunday Telegraphsays that “protests like this – the lethal combination of smugness and hysteria – make me feel less, not more, keen on behaving sustainably”. Boris Johnson – the Conservative MP and former London mayor who has long had aspirations to be the next Tory leader – writes in the Daily Telegraph: “I am not saying for one second that the climate change activists are wrong in their concerns for the planet – and of course there is much more that can be done. But the UK is by no means the prime culprit, and may I respectfully suggest to the Extinction Rebellion crew that next Earth Day they look at China, where CO2 output has not been falling, but rising vertiginously.” An editorial in the Sunday Timesmakes a similar point: “The UK has a good record. Greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 were 43% below 1990 levels and well on track for an 80% reduction by 2050…The big three countries for carbon emissions are China, America and India, half of the global total. China’s coal-fired power plants have pushed the people’s republic up to nearly 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions…Yes, there is more to be done. But we should be clear about where the effort is best directed.” Jonathon Ford in the Financial Times argues: “The first thing is that this war will not be won in Britain, or even Europe and the US. Almost all emissions growth is in developing countries, where the priorities are understandably weighted towards economic development. Indeed our own approach to decarbonisation has deactivated some levers we could have pulled. So we have cut our own emissions by outsourcing production to cheaper, more emitting locations in the developing world. What is needed now is a different approach. Some sort of carbon tariff would be a more effective mechanism for driving down CO2.” Writing in the Daily Telegraph, former Labour MP Tom Harris says the “real priority” if the protestors “was to be seen signalling their virtue, a task they have adequately achieved. So well done them.” Philip Collins, who used to write speeches for Ed Miliband when he was climate minister a decade ago, writes in the Times that Extinction Rebellion “sound as if they want to turn back the clock on technology and ask people to stop living modern lives of such abundance. Theirs is a hopeless case and it will not work.” Prof Andre Spicer, a specialist in organisational behaviour at the Cass Business School at City University, writes in the Guardian that the “majority of people who could potentially be won over to their cause don’t see themselves as ‘rebels’. Instead they identify as parents, workers, neighbours, members of ethnic or religious groups and many other things. To effectively reach out, the climate change movement needs to connect with these identities.”

“Extinction Rebellion protesters are clear. They want the UK to be decarbonised by 2025,” writes the Observer’s science editor Robin McKie, but “just how quickly can we eliminate our carbon emissions?” Meeting a net-zero target would mean “massive curtailment of travel by car or plane, major changes in food production – steaks would become culinary treats of the past – and the construction of swathes of wind and solar plants”, says McKie. But some experts “argue that such an imminent target is completely impractical”, notes McKie, and most expect the UK’s climate change committee will recommend “2050 as Britain’s ideal decarbonisation date”. Also writing in the Observer, Bob Ward – policy and communications director at the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science – says meeting a net-zero target by 2050 would require “significant investments, but the returns will be huge, not just in terms of avoided climate change impacts, but also new opportunities for innovative UK businesses serving the growing global demand for zero-emissions technologies”. He concludes: “A zero-emissions economy will be cleaner, smarter and more efficient, ensuring prosperity and wellbeing for current and future generations.”

Heat waves will increase globally through the twenty-first century, posing a serious threat to China—the world’s largest rice producer. This study examined changes in the rice cultivation area exposed to heat stress from 1980 through 2015 across the major irrigated rice-growing areas in mainland China. They showed that the rice-planted area exposed to heat stress has increased, especially over the last decade. The northern parts of the mid-lower reaches of Yangtze River witnessed a substantial spread in rice extreme heat stress since the 1990s. In southern China, the rice-planted area exposed to heat stress has increased more than threefold over the past decade.