There is continuing coverage of the agreement by EU leaders to end Russian oil imports by the end of the year. Reuters notes that the embargo will have exemptions for the pipeline imports that Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic rely on. According to the Associated Press, the deal came after Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, whose nation gets more than 60% of its oil via pipeline from Russia, made it clear he could only support new sanctions if their energy security was guaranteed. BBC News summarises the outcomes, noting that the EU-wide ban will target oil that arrives by sea, which represent around two-thirds of imports, while Poland and Germany have also pledged to end pipeline imports. Politico notes that the ban will take months to come into effect, with the ban on seaborne oil coming in after six months, the refined products ban beginning in 2023 and the Czech Republic granted an exemption from a ban on the resale of Russian oil products through to mid-2024. Nevertheless, it still marks “an unprecedented blow against an industry that’s Russia’s largest foreign currency earner”, the news website says. Die Zeit reports that German political party the Left has demanded exceptions for east Germany after the EU compromise on the oil embargo. It quotes the east German representative of the Left, Sören Pellmann: “The east Germans must not be the victims of the embargo policy…If there are exceptions for EU countries, east Germany should also be able to make use of them.”

The Times reports that oil prices rose above $124 a barrel after the EU agreed on the embargo, with analysts warning that Russia could respond by cutting exports to the region even sooner than planned, “preventing an orderly transition to alternative supplies”. Russia, which produced more than one-tenth of global oil before its invasion of Ukraine, will need to find new buyers “or international oil markets could become dangerously undersupplied”, the Financial Times says. India and China are likely candidates, it notes, but there “remain big question marks over just how much Russian oil they can absorb”. Bloomberg reports that Russian oil is currently trading at 30% cheaper than the global benchmark “as traditional buyers of the crude retreat due to a mixture of official restrictions and self-sanctioning”. As the war approaches its 100th day, an article filed as “the big take” by Bloomberg examines whether sanctions have been successful in slowing down Russia’s invasion. It notes that Russia’s finances are benefiting from a surge in commodity prices, stating that its oil-and-gas revenue will be about $285bn this year, exceeding 2021 figures by more than one-fifth.

Russian state gas company Gazprom has announced it is cutting off additional supplies of natural gas to Europe as the continent moves ahead with its own ban on Russian oil, the Hill reports. Gazprom says the cutoffs follow three companies – Shell in a small supply agreement with Germany, Danish company Ørsted and Dutch company GasTerra BV – failing to comply with Russia’s new requirement to pay for gas in roubles, the piece notes. Bloomberg notes that some countries, such as Poland and Bulgaria, have stood firm against these new terms that risked breaching the bloc’s own sanctions “and [seen] their gas cut off”. Reuters describes the move as Russia “escalating its economic battle with Brussels and pushing up European gas prices”. However, it adds that the nations involved say that, as yet, there is no threat to their overall gas supplies. Meanwhile, another Reuters story reports that German companies Uniper and RWE have paid for Russian gas under a new scheme proposed by Moscow, which involves setting up accounts that would be paid in euros and then swapped for roubles. This has “exposed cracks in Europe’s united response towards Russia”, it says.

The Guardian reports on comments by Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas saying that gas is unlikely to be part of the next round of sanctions against Russia. Politico has a piece titled, “don’t expect the EU to ban Russian gas any time soon”, which notes that leaders are concerned further sanctions would risk “hurting the EU more than [Vladimir] Putin” as eurozone inflation increases.

In the UK, a Bloomberg story notes that the UK is in talks with energy company Centrica to reopen its biggest natural gas storage site “as the war in Ukraine threatens to deepen the nation’s energy crisis this winter”.

China’s carbon emissions have “posted their longest sustained drop in a decade” due to the country’s “efforts to rein in the property market, boost clean energy and control the spread of the virus”, Bloomberg writes, citing new analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta – an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Bloomberg says that China’s carbon “output dropped 1.4%” in the first quarter of 2022, marking “three consecutive quarters of falling emissions” that began last summer when the government “tightened” its policies on the real estate sector, according to the guest post.

Meanwhile, China’s government said it would “expand its range of financial tools” and make “greater use” of “fiscal and taxation policies” to “support the shift towards carbon neutrality”, Reuters reports. The newswire writes that – according to “policy recommendations” from the Ministry of Finance published on Monday – China “aims to create a basic financial policy framework by 2030 to support green and low-carbon development” and will also “aim to give more play to market mechanisms like carbon and pollution discharge trading”. The Economic Information Daily – a financial newspaper run by Xinhua, the state news agency – covers the same policy document. The document highlights that, according to a person “in charge” at the Ministry of Finance, the document is part of China’s “1+N” policy framework and an “important guarantee” for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. (Read more about China’s “1+N” framework in Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.)

Separately, the State Council – China’s state administrative agency – issued a new notice, announcing “a package of policies” to “stabilise” the economy, China Energy News reports. Among others, the notice orders the nation to “release high-quality coal production capacity under the premise of ensuring safe, clean and efficient utilisation in an orderly manner” and “improve the capacity and standard of coal reserves”, the state-run industry newspaper notes. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that China is “likely to delay adding some of its most polluting industries to its carbon market” until 2024. Citing “a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named as the information isn’t public”, the outlet says that China is “looking at” incorporating aluminium, cement, petrochemical and steel companies into the carbon market from 2024.

The Biden administration has announced plans to cut the cost of building wind and solar projects on federal lands to help drive renewable energy development and address climate change, Reuters reports. The Department of Interior said in a statement that rents and fees for such projects would fall by about 50%, adding that it would also increase the number of people processing renewable energy environmental reviews and permit applications by creating five coordinating offices in the states of Washington, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah, according to the newswire.

In related news, the Washington Post examines the budgetary and staffing “woes” of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which Joe Biden said he would reinvigorate when he took office. The article says that the agency’s funding “has remained stagnant since his inauguration” after receiving only a fifth of the $2bn Biden requested from Congress. It says this is hampering its ability to “inspect facilities, measure contamination, punish violators and write new rules to stem pollution and climate change”. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that by the beginning of July the Supreme Court is expected to make a decision on whether the EPA can require states to cut emissions, following a case brought by West Virginia and 18 other coal states.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s new climate and energy minister, has said the new Labor government will introduce a climate bill that includes its target of cutting emissions 43% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels because enshrining them in law was “best practice”, the Guardian reports. He dismissed assessments and comments from other political parties, including the Greens, calling for a more ambitious emissions target, which were laid out in Carbon Brief’s assessment of what the new Australian government would mean for climate action last week. The Guardian notes that the Greens are “expected to hold the balance of power in the Senate” and points to comments by the party’s leader Adam Bandt that Labor could not take its votes for granted without serious climate action.

A comment piece in the Times written by James Kanagasooriam, founder of analytics company Stack Data Strategy, examines whether a centre-right, pro-climate party – perhaps the Liberal Democrats – could cause trouble for the Conservative party in future UK elections.

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has met US president Joe Biden, who praised her leadership on climate change.

According to Climate Home News, Finland has passed “arguably the world’s most ambitious climate target into law”, with a target of net-zero by 2035 and net-negative, meaning it absorbs more carbon dioxide (CO2) than it emits, by 2040. This would make it the first developed country to reach net-zero, as, according to Net Zero Tracker, only South Sudan has a more ambitious target than 2035. The article notes that, as a developing country, South Sudan’s 2030 target is highly dependent on international climate finance. It adds that whether or not Finland meets its climate goals will depend heavily on the nation’s forests, which cover three-quarters of its land area but last year, for the first time, released more greenhouse gases than they absorbed.

Deutsche Welle reports that prosecutors in Frankfurt have raided the offices of both Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary DWS as part of an investigation into so-called “greenwashing”. It explains that “the searches related to allegations of financial institutions marketing investment products as more environmentally friendly than they really were”. Prosecutors say investigators have already found “sufficient indications” that ESG (environmental, social and governance) standards were applied only “in a minority of investments”, DW adds. It details that “ESG products are an increasingly important asset class as financial institutions aim to trim portfolios in line with global climate targets”.

MPs on the UK’s environmental audit committee (EAC) say they have heard evidence that government initiatives to support decarbonisation of the nations steel industry “lacked ambition compared with other countries”, the Times reports. The committee has written to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to warn that unless action is taken the industry risks further contraction in the UK and the country may become more reliant on imported steel in the future, the newspaper continues. The MPs heard that Tata Steel, one of the UK’s two major remaining steel plants, was reluctant to invest in hydrogen-based technologies because of “the uncertainty surrounding the abundance and affordability of hydrogen supplies”, it adds. BusinessGreen notes that the steel industry currently accounts for around 14% of the UK’s industrial emissions, and says the EAC urged the government to “quickly develop a catch-up strategy in order to encourage more research and development in emerging decarbonised technologies”.

In other UK news, Bloomberg reports that the nation is considering guaranteeing at least $1bn of South African debt as part of a larger $8.5bn funding package announced with other nations at COP26 as a means of ending the African nation’s reliance on coal. The Financial Times has a relevant piece titled: “Can Africa grow without fossil fuels?”

Meanwhile, in the UK itself, Bloomberg reports that the government is “considering paying for a supply of coal to keep power stations online that would otherwise be shutting before winter”. The piece notes that the UK is currently in a “tight spot” with its power supply, reliant on liquified natural gas (LNG), but potentially facing a “precarious” situation this winter as coal and nuclear plants are set to go offline.

Bloomberg columnists Clara Ferreira Marques and David Fickling write about the “imperfect solution” that is the EU’s embargo on Russian oil, which they say is “a vital step forward nonetheless”. They say that the deal comes “embarrassingly late” and that “after impressive early displays of unity and speed, the unseemly haggling in the run-up to this deal exposed fractures in Europe that will only encourage Moscow”. The writers also note that concessions to the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orban mean that several of the plan’s features will be delayed until six or eight months after the proposal is adopted. “None of this should take away from what is still a significant achievement, almost unthinkable just months ago. An energy embargo, even an imperfect one, is painful for the Kremlin immediately – and is an important signal of intent,” they continue.

CNN’s David Andelman also focuses on the concessions made for Orban: “The problem today is the precedent. It was painfully clear that Hungary, by digging in its heels, was able to do just what it wanted in the end. What’s to prevent others in the future from behaving similarly on other issues critical to the European community?”

Meanwhile, writing for the Daily Telegraph, Matt Ridley, the climate-sceptic commentator who chaired the failed Northern Rock bank a decade ago and who owns inherited land that has been mined for coal, has a piece titled “Britain faces blackouts thanks to Vladimir Putin’s war on shale”. In the piece, he repeats unevidenced claims that “an unholy alliance of the Kremlin and green activists” helped to demonise fracking in the UK. These comments about unsubstantiated links between Russian and western NGOs are often repeated by pro-fracking commentators and lobbyists, although many have questioned their veracity.

Veteran climate activist Bill McKibben writes in the Guardian that older generations who were complicit in the “decay of our civic life and cultural fabric” in the US “must play a serious role in fixing it”. He says “we let problems of race, poverty and the environment fester; in the new mythology, markets would somehow take care of them”. Separately, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf has a pessimistic reflection following time spent at Davos last week. In his piece he lays out “12 propositions on the state of the world”, one of which is: “Given the immense political and organisational challenges, the chances that humanity will prevent damaging climate change are slim.”

Human-caused climate change is affecting seasonal rainfall in Europe, a new study shows, causing “drier seasons in the Mediterranean basin and wetter over the rest of the continent”. These trends are stronger in winter and weaker in summer, “when drying is more spatially widespread”, the authors note. The climate change signal is “dominated by the response to greenhouse gas emissions”, the study finds, but is also weakened – “to some extent” – by the opposite effect of human-caused air pollution. In addition, climate change is affecting the characteristics of seasonal extremes, the authors say, “with the frequency of high precipitation extremes increasing everywhere except the Mediterranean basin, where low precipitation extremes become more common”.