EU leaders meeting in Brussels have fallen short of signing up to a goal of achieving net-zero emissions across the bloc by 2050, reports Politico. “France and Germany had led efforts for the 28-member EU to lead by example in setting an ambitious new climate goal ahead of UN climate talks in September,” says Reuters. However, needing unanimous support, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Poland blocked the deal, says the Financial Times. The four countries objected to the inclusion of a specific date, says EurActiv. This was despite “extra details on funding and the societal element of greening the economy” being included in the latest draft of the summit statement “specifically to placate the fears of countries like the Czech Republic and Poland, as both rely heavily on fossil fuels. But it was to no avail.” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters that Poland wants a strong compensation package for its industry in exchange for agreeing to commit to climate neutrality, reports Reuters. “Poland is among those countries that must have very concrete compensation packages – we must know what funds we will get for modernisation of our industry sectors,” he said. The climate neutrality goal was relegated to a footnote in the final statement, notes the Independent, with an explanation that “for a large majority of member states, climate neutrality must be achieved by 2050”. The Guardian and New York Times also have the story.

Climate change protesters briefly interrupted a speech by UK Chancellor Philip Hammond to leaders of the country’s financial services industry last night, reports Reuters. A group of women wearing red evening dresses and sashes with the words “climate emergency” used loudspeakers to prevent Hammond from speaking during a banquet in London’s Mansion House building. Greenpeace, who organised the protest, said that 40 activists had “gatecrashed” the chancellor’s speech because “business as usual is no longer an option”, notes BBC News. A Foreign Office minister is now facing calls to resign after footage showed him forcibly ejecting one of the activists, reports the Daily Telegraph. Sir Mark Field, the Foreign Office minister for Asia and the Pacific, was seen grabbing one woman when she walked past his chair at the dinner. Field “shoved her against a pillar, grabbed the back of her neck and marched her out of the room in shocking footage obtained by ITV News”, says the Sun. “Mr Field claimed he reacted ‘instinctively’ and has referred himself to the Cabinet Office for an investigation,” reports BBC News. “He also apologised to the woman for ‘grabbing her’ – but said he was worried she may have been armed.” The incident has been reported to the police, says the Guardian. The Press Association and MailOnline also have the story.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Greenpeace has ended its protest against BP drilling for oil in the North Sea by handing in “people’s climate injunctions” at the company’s headquarters. Protesters had spent nearly seven days occupying an oil rig rented by BP in the Cromarty Firth in northern Scotland last week.

A “citizens’ assembly on the climate emergency” will take place this autumn to explore the fastest and fairest ways to end the UK’s carbon emissions, reports the Guardian. Six House of Commons select committees announced the assembly yesterday. Rachel Reeves MP, chair of the business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) committee said: “This isn’t a challenge for just one parliament, one political party, or one generation; to achieve net zero by 2050 we need to build cross-party and cross-generational support for the actions needed to deliver it.“ Although the assembly, to be held over several weekends this autumn, would have no independent powers, “its deliberations will inform broader discussion over how Britain can deliver on a commitment to reach net zero carbon by 2050”, says Reuters. The announcement comes weeks after activist movement Extinction Rebellion made a citizens’ assembly on “climate and ecological justice” one of its three core demands, notes Climate Home News. Reflecting on the story, BusinessGreen deputy editor Madeleine Cuff writes that the aim of the assembly “is to go beyond the kneejerk reaction of a poll, to gain a deeper understanding of public attitudes to a particular social issue, and what policies they would agree with to address it”. BBC News also has the story.

The UK will generate more of its electricity this year from zero-carbon sources than fossil fuels for the first time since the industrial revolution, according to a forecast by the National Grid. In the first four months of the year, 47.9% of the country’s electricity came from non-polluting sources — hydro, nuclear, solar and wind — compared with 46.7% from gas and coal. The National Grid “expects the trend to continue, making 2019 the first year that zero-carbon sources will play the dominant role in electricity generation since coal usage became widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries,” says the FT. National Grid said the “landmark tipping point” is an “historic achievement” in the UK’s journey towards becoming a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, reports the Guardian. The Daily Telegraph, BBC News and Reuters also have the story, while BusinessGreen reports that the UK has already broken the record for the most hours in a year without using coal for generating electricity.

In related news, the Press Association reports that Labour’s new climate change minister is demanding a ban on fracking. Danielle Rowley, who has been appointed as shadow climate justice and green jobs minister, said: “As a priority, I will be using my position to push them to immediately ban fracking, stop blocking onshore wind and extend free bus travel to under-25s.”

French energy group EDF faces further cost overruns and delays at the nuclear reactor it is building in Flamanville in northern France after the French regulator ordered additional repairs, Reuters reports. The French nuclear watchdog has said EDF would have to repair eight faulty weldings in the reactor’s containment building, adding that it had rejected a request to delay repairs until 2024, after its startup. “This means the Flamanville startup would again be delayed by two or three years from the most recent startup target of loading fuel in the reactor by the end of this year,” Reuters adds. In a statement, EDF said it is “currently analysing the impact of this decision on the Flamanville EPR [European Pressurized Reactor] schedule and cost, and, in the upcoming weeks, it will give a detailed update on the next steps in the project”, reports the Financial Times. In the UK, Reuters also reports that EDF has extended shutdowns at the two reactors at its Hunterston plant in Scotland because of cracks identified on the graphite core last year.

In related news, Reuters reports that China could build as many as 30 overseas nuclear reactors through its “Belt and Road” initiative over the next decade, according to an industry official.

After pressure from Saudi Arabia, the 1.5C report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) faces being dropped from formal negotiations in the science stream of UN climate talks, reports Climate Home News. Discussions came to an impasse in December when Saudi Arabia, the US, Kuwait and Russia refused to endorse the findings from the IPCC. The article explains: “That continued this week as climate talks resumed in Bonn, Germany, with countries deadlocked over how to use the report to inform their plans to fulfil the Paris Agreement. Saudi Arabia raised concerns the report could become a permanent item on the UN climate agenda.” Under what diplomats called a “gentlemen’s agreement”, which was struck before the Bonn meeting opened, negotiators agreed to work on a compromise. However, the terms of the deal could mean countries may “no longer have a dedicated space to discuss the findings of the report”, said Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis. Last December, Carbon Brief secured an exclusive interview with Saudi Arabia’s senior climate negotiator in which he explained his country’s position on the IPCC 1.5C report.

Emily Holden, an environment reporter for Guardian US, looks at how 79-year old physicist William Happer – dubbed the “chief climate change skeptic” in Donald Trump’s White House – has influenced US policy. The former Princeton physicist was in charge of energy research under President George HW Bush, says Holden, before being relieved of his government job under Bill Clinton when “Happer got into a public disagreement with Al Gore, then the vice-president, over evidence that refrigerant chemicals were eating a hole in the ozone layer”. “So began Happer’s reputation as a renegade and dissident within a small subculture of academics who think the huge body of research proving a man-made climate crisis is wrong,” says Holden. “Since he was appointed last autumn as the director of emerging technologies on the White House’s National Security Council, Happer has pushed to challenge the government’s findings that climate change is a national security threat.” This includes censoring written testimony from the state department – noting in one draft document that it was “not objective testimony at all” and included “a lot of climate-alarm propaganda” – and emailing Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine criticising his views that humans are the major cause of warming.

One of the largest sources of uncertainty in estimates of global temperature change comes from corrections to sea surface temperature (SST) measurements. Despite recent work to quantify and reduce these errors throughout the historical record, differences between analyses remain larger than can be explained by the estimated uncertainties. This paper presents version 4 of the Met Office Hadley Centre SST data set, HadSST. The new version provides improved estimates of biases associated with engine‐room measurements and insulated buckets. It includes a 200‐member “ensemble” reflecting a range of possible adjustments. The evolution of global average SST in the new data set is similar to that in other SST data sets and the difference between data sets is reduced during the mid‐20th century.

During recent decades, there has been dramatic Arctic sea ice retreat. This has reduced the albedo, adding more solar energy to the climate system. There is substantial uncertainty regarding how much ice retreat and associated solar heating will occur in the future. This paper uses satellite observations to estimate the amount of solar energy that would be added in the worst‐case scenario of a complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice throughout the sunlit part of the year. They find an effect equivalent to that of one trillion tonnes of CO2 emissions. These results suggest that the additional heating due to complete Arctic sea ice loss would hasten global warming by an estimated 25 years.