New York City is suing five major oil companies, seeking compensation for the billions of dollars its spends protecting the city from the effects of climate change, mayor Bill de Blasio announced yesterday. “Seeking to position himself as a national leader against climate change”, the New York Times writes, de Blasio also vowed that city pension funds would divest $5bn from companies involved in the fossil fuel industry. “As climate change continues to worsen, it’s up to the fossil fuel companies whose greed put us in this position to shoulder the cost of making New York safer and more resilient”, de Blasio said in a statement. However, he acknowledged that the lawsuit against BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell – which says that the companies were aware for years that burning fossil fuels caused climate change, but hid the conclusions of their scientists – could take years to reach a resolution. Grist, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed, the Financial Times, the Times and Inside Climate News also have the story.

Donald Trump’s administration has exempted Florida from the US president’s controversial plan to open most of the nation’s coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling. The five-year plan was to open 90% of US offshore reserves to fossil fuel companies. But Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott vocally opposed the plans when they were announced last week. Florida lawmakers of both parties have “long opposed” offshore drilling, especially since the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the New York Times says. “Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver. As a result… I am removing Florida from consideration from any new oil and gas platforms”, US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement on Twitter. Within hours of the announcement of a reversal, governors of other coastal states also began demanding exemptions. Henry McMaster, Republican governor of South Carolina, said yesterday that he wanted an exemption like Florida’s for his state, the Financial Times reports. The office of Chris Christie, Republican governor of New Jersey, said: ‘If exceptions are being made for other states, the governor will certainly pursue the same type of exception for New Jersey.” The Hill and Inside Climate News also have the story.

US president Donald Trump has said that America could “conceivably” return to the 2015 Paris climate accord, in “the strongest hint yet he is considering a turnaround”, the Telegraph reports. Trump reiterated his opinion that the agreement was “a bad deal” for the US, but said that he had no problem with the accord itself. Trump’s decision last June to withdraw the US from the 2015 accord has been criticised as an “abdication of US leadership on a key global challenge”, the BBC writes, although the US is yet to formally exit the agreement. The Hill and Reuters also have the story.

Following the success of Elon Musk’s 100MW lithium ion battery at Hornsdale power reserve, another battery and renewable power plant are in the works, the Guardian reports. South Australia is set to build the world’s largest solar thermal plant, and a Queensland wind farm may be the site of a new record-breaking battery. Tesla delivered its South Australian battery in less than 100 days, in partnership with the state government, after blackouts in 2016 were blamed on renewable energy. Elsewhere, a feature in the Conversation examines how Tesla’s South Australia battery is “surpassing expectations”, particularly in regard to “the battery’s rapid response time in smoothing out several major energy outages”.

The Welsh government has offered to make a “substantial” investment in the £1.3 billion project to build a tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay, the Times reports. It did not quantify the amount of its equity or loan investment, but industry sources suggested that it could be “several hundreds of millions of pounds”. The project has been on hold with the UK government yet to give its approval. The Belfast Telegraph also carries the story.

Is Trumps’s plan to make 90% of the US outer continental shelf available for drilling really going to trigger an offshore drilling boom? “Don’t hold your breath for anything to happen any time soon”, writes Robin Pagnamenta in the Times. There are “signs already that the plans might unravel”, as Florida becomes the first state to push back. “The governors of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oregon and Washington have all signalled their opposition” too, Pagnamenta notes. In addition, oil companies “are still feeling the pinch from an oil price crash that began in 2014”, and remain “reluctant to shell out”. “An offshore American drilling boom is unlikely to take off soon unless oil prices jump dramatically higher”, he concludes.

Human activity has caused detectable changes in the frequencies of summer days, tropical nights, icy days and frosty nights in eastern China over 1960–2012, a new study says. The researchers uses a “fingerprinting” technique to identify causes of long-term changes in eastern China’s climate. Greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in an increase in summer days and tropical nights and a decline in icy days and frosty nights, the study finds, with the impact partly offset the emissions of aerosols. “Little influence of natural forcings was found,” the authors note.

Using parish registers, archival documents and other literary sources, a new paper explores the “Great Snow” of 1614-15 in England. The event was “certainly one of the heaviest and prolonged snowfalls in England’s weather history,” the researchers say. The freezing conditions were followed by flooding and then drought in some areas, the study says, making 1615 “a particularly memorable weather year”.