There is widespread coverage of a study finding that polar bears in Svalbard – the fastest-warming region on Earth – are in better condition than they were a generation ago, despite melting sea ice. The Times notes that measurements from 770 animals collected over 1992-2019 found that the “body condition index” of the bears – a measure of fat reserves and overall health – improved after 2000. The researchers believe polar bear numbers in the region are “likely to be rising” – despite being in decline elsewhere, the newspaper says. The New Scientist explains that the polar bear researchers “don’t expect the good times to last” and have linked the trend to shrinking ice making seal pups easier to hunt and bears shifting to new food sources. It quotes lead author Dr John Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute: “There will be a threshold, and… polar bears in Svalbard will be negatively affected by continued sea ice loss”. 

BBC News says experts think the findings could be linked to a hunting ban enacted in the 1970s and an increase in walruses and reindeer. As sea ice continues to decline, “bears will have to travel further to access hunting grounds, using more energy and depleting precious fat reserves”, it says. The New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Press Association, Agence France-Presse, National Geographic, CBC News, ABC News and Vox all cover the research.

For the first time, renewables have supplied 50% of electricity generation on Australia’s largest grid, according to an update from the energy market operator covered by Reuters. The newswire notes that across the national electricity market (which does not include Western Australia and the Northern Territory), gas-fired generation fell to its “lowest level” since 2000, while total electricity generation rose by 3.1% year-on-year. ABC News reports that the milestone – achieved in the fourth quarter of last year – came as demand for electricity in the market reached an “all-time high” amid “greater demand for heating and cooling, electrification, the rise of power-hungry data centres and population growth”. The outlet notes that rooftop solar helped to meet “much of the extra consumption”, at one stage covering 61% of demand. 

MORE ON AUSTRALIA

• Daily Mail: “Australia sizzles as outback towns hit nearly 50C in record-shattering heatwave”
• The bushfires that have torn through the province of Victoria this month have caused a “substantive” loss of animal life, reports the Guardian.

The Washington Post reports that Trump officials have delayed the repeal of the “endangerment finding” – a legal opinion that undergirds federal climate rules in the US – due to “concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge”. The newspaper says it has this on the authority of “two people familiar with the matter”, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The sources reportedly told the newspaper that the White House’s office of information and regulatory affairs has “expressed concerns” over the “strength of the scientific and economic analysis” of the proposed repeal. The newspaper notes that the Environmental Protection Agency’s argument for repealing the 2009 finding “primarily relied on an energy department report that was written last spring by a working group of five known climate sceptics”. It adds that “scientists say the report is riddled with errors”. [Carbon Brief’s factcheck found more than 100 false or misleading claims in the report.]

MORE ON US

• Bloomberg speaks to scientists about how Trump’s “Greenland threats” put climate change research at risk – with some projects halted and future scientific collaborations between US and Greenland “uncertain”.
• The Guardian: “US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate”.
• Bloomberg covers a report from the US grid reliability regulator which says 151 million Americans are at “high risk” of power shortfalls over the next five years because of “extreme weather, natural gas system vulnerabilities and soaring electricity demand”. Reuters also reports the findings.
• Some US states are requiring major utilities to offer discounted rates to people heating homes with electricity, reports the New York Times.
• The Trump administration has issued a general license expanding the ability of US oil companies to operate in Venezuela, according to Bloomberg.
• Bloomberg looks at how US interior secretary Doug Burgum is using an “anthropomorphised lump of coal named Coalie” as the mascot of the US administration’s “American energy dominance agenda”.

Chinese president Xi Jinping and British prime minister Keir Starmer have pledged to build a “long-term strategic partnership”, reports financial news outlet Caixin. Xi pressed Starmer to ensure a “fair” business environment, it adds, following “regulatory scrutiny” of Chinese tech energy firms. Xi called for the two countries to conduct “joint research” in fields including “new energy” and “low-carbon technologies”, reports state news agency Xinhua. Starmer said Britain will “strengthen cooperation” on climate change, it adds. The Financial Times, New York Times, China Daily, Reuters, South China Morning Post, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Brussels Morning, CNBC and others also cover the news. China’s foreign minister Wang Yi met with UK national security advisor Jonathan Powell, says Xinhua. Octopus Energy will partner on building a “power trading platform” with China’s PCG Power, in a “rare entrance by a UK energy firm into China’s tightly-regulated power market”, says Bloomberg.

MORE ON CHINA

• Bloomberg reports that China’s green finance balance stands at just under $7tn, citing calculations by Institute of Finance and Sustainability president Dr Ma Jun.
• MIIT head Li Lecheng urged solar manufacturers to continue “curbing cut-throat competition” in a recent meeting, according to BJX News.
• Chinese outbound direct investment in “green sectors” by the end of 2025, reports China Daily. Reuters covers new research finding small island states view China as a “top” development assistance partner after the US’s “pivot” from climate change.
• China Review News Agency cites Tsinghua University’s Li Zheng saying that, by the 2050s, two-thirds of the technologies China needs for emissions reduction will still be in “very early” research stages, showing that achieving carbon neutrality is an “extremely challenging task”.
• The EU now has the highest number of “serious trade disputes” with China, partly due to conflicts over rare earth magnets, reports the South China Morning Post.
• Yicai reports on the decline of the use of “hydrogen fuel cell buses” in the southern city of Foshan, which was seen as a “champion” of hydrogen energy.

Oil and gas giant TotalEnergies has resumed construction on a $20bn gas project in Mozambique, five years after the scheme was suspended in the wake of an attack which killed 800 people, reports Agence France-Presse. The scheme – reportedly the “largest private investment in Africa’s energy infrastructure” – has been described by environmental groups as a “climate bomb” that will bring “little benefit” to the Mozambique people, the newswire says. Agence France-Presse notes that TotalEnergies currently faces two legal proceedings in France, including a manslaughter investigation related to the 2021 attack in Mozambique, and is also a subject to a complaint for “complicity in war crimes” filed by a German NGO. The fossil fuel giant is reportedly seeking $4.5bn in damages from the Mozambique government for “cost overruns” linked to the delay. The Associated Press reports that TotalEnegries CEO Patrick Pouyanne pledged to provide financial support to Mozambique following deadly floods at a relaunch event for the project.

MORE ON SOUTHERN AFRICA

• The Hill, Bloomberg, Reuters and Climate Home News cover an attribution study that found the recent deadly floods in southern Africa were intensified by human-caused climate change. [Carbon Brief also reported the findings].

Some 262,000 solar installations were carried out in the UK last year, in the “highest recorded total” since 2011, reports the Daily Telegraph. The paper attributes the 37% year-on-year increase to a “net-zero blitz” led by energy secretary Ed Miliband. It notes that the “bulk of the growth” in 2025 came from projects under 50kW – which suggests the “record” number was driven by rooftop solar on homes and businesses. Elsewhere, there is widespread coverage of the government’s decision to keep a £150 subsidy for low-income households to cover winter bills hikes in place. Under the plans announced by the government, reports BBC News, the “warm homes discount” will remain in place for another five years – and extended automatically to hundreds of thousands of eligible Scottish households who previously had to apply to be part of the scheme. The Daily Express carries quotes from shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho and a Tony Blair Institute official in a piece which claims Labour is “under fire” in the wake of the announcement. 

MORE ON UK

• Ben Goldsmith – Boris Johnson “ally” and “veteran environmentalist” – is advising Reform UK on its nature policy, reports the Guardian in an “exclusive”.
• The government has backed a heat network scheme which will see energy from the Thames power landmark cultural sites on London’s Southbank, according to the Times.
• BBC News reports from an oil platform which sits over an almost-depleted oilfield in the North Sea earmarked to become the “EU’s first large-scale offshore carbon storage storage site”.
• Campaigners have warned the UK risks “breaching international law” if it approves the Rosebank project, given the project’s links to an Israeli oil and gas company accused by the UN human rights commissioner of “supporting the maintenance and existence” of illegal settlements in the West Bank, according to BBC News.
• LanzaTech has announced it will invest £600m on the construction of a “sustainable aviation fuel” facility in Humberside, reports BusinessGreen.

Paul Bledsoe – former communications director of the Clinton administration’s White House climate change task force – writes that Trump’s “heedless preoccupation” with exploiting oil and gas reserves in Greenland and the Arctic risks a “far more rapid meltdown of the Arctic, with disastrous consequences for nations and people around the world”. Preventing further Arctic sea ice loss is “critical” to “forestall a domino effect of climate change tipping points in many other natural systems”, he says. And yet, he warns, increased shipping traffic and oil and gas development in the region will “greatly increase” the amount of “climate pollution, including from CO2, methane and especially black carbon soot, which is already washing out onto Arctic ice and increasing melting rates tremendously”. He concludes that Trump’s “deeply misguided plans” would increase the chances of “disastrous, runaway climate change”.

MORE CLIMATE COMMENT

• Josh Busby, former climate advisor at the US state department, joins fellow academic Greg Pollock in Foreign Policy to explore how the new US national defense strategy tries to “imagine climate change away”. 
• For Backchannel, Dr Kennedy Mbeva from the University of Cambridge explores how Africa could “overhaul” its approach to climate diplomacy.
• Bloomberg columnist Allison Schrager argues the meaning of “responsible investing” is “not so clear anymore” as the “geopolitical world becomes more uncertain and the global economic order more unstable”.

BusinessGreen editor-in-chief James Murray argues the government’s recent decision to cut legacy subsidy payments to renewables schemes earlier this week is a “retrograde step that could yet have a negative impact on the UK’s clean energy transition”. The move, he says, comes against a backdrop where Labour has done a “a huge amount… to remove barriers to clean energy development and catalyse investment”. Murray posits: “The subsidies may have been excessive, but they were designed to seed a market in its early stages and were largely successful in doing so…Retrospectively changing a policy, even if it is a change at the margins, will inevitably spook investors, increase risk and push up the cost of capital for future projects.”

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Cecilia Keating, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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