Successive governments have got their priorities wrong on energy policy by giving priority to lowering emissions at the expense of keeping costs down and the lights on, according to a report by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. The report criticises what it deems the “narrow” capacity margins in the current electricity system and the rising cost of bills since 2003, and calls instead for a “flexible” approach to decarbonisation including technology-neutral auctions and an Energy Commission to advise on the best way to achieve the UK’s energy objectives. The Times has called the report “damning”, centring on chairman Lord Hollick’s characterisation of Hinkley Point nuclear power station as “a good example of the way policy has become unbalanced and affordability neglected”. The Telegraph similarly calls the Lords’ report a “scathing” criticism of the government’s energy plans, highlighting its call for an urgent “Plan B” for troubled high cost nuclear projects. The report has drawn heavy criticism from other quarters, however, for being “backward looking” and making “out-of-date claims”, reports BusinessGreen. Michael Grubb, professor of international energy and climate change at UCL, who gave evidence to the Committee, said that by citing big rises in electricity bills without acknowledging the impact of gas prices as a key driver, the Lords’ conclusions are marred by “a slanted presentation of conclusions and statistics”. Reuters and Bloomberg News have more on the new report.

The US has said it will delegates to the next round of international climate change talks in Bonn in May, despite Donald Trump’s vow that he would abandon the Paris agreement at the centre of the German negotiations. Nick Nuttall, communications co-ordinator for the UN climate change secretariat in Bonn, said: “We got an email saying there is a US delegation coming in May,” said It looked like it was a pretty standard delegation that they would send.” Patricia Espinosa, the secretariat’s executive secretary, said she hopes to meet senior Trump administration officials in Washington next week to plans to emphasise the importance of the Paris deal.

Language in an early draft of forthcoming executive order criticising the Paris climate deal has reportedly been axed after President Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser, intervened. With Trump expected to sign at least two orders within days aimed at unraveling former President Barack Obama’s environmental and climate regulations, White House official told the Wall Street Journal that Kushner and Ivanka Trump are considered to be a moderating influence on the president’s views. White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Thursday declined to say whether Trump plans to withdraw from the accord.

Rising temperatures are shrinking the Colorado River, the most important waterway in the American Southwest, according to scientists, with projections that it could reduce the flow by more than a third by the end of the century. Recent research has found that the river’s volume dropped more than 19% during a drought since 2000 and while a shortage of rain and snow accounts for two-thirds of that decline, the rest is due to a warming atmosphere induced by climate change. The projections could signal big problems for cities and farmers, say the researchers, with the river supplying water to about 40 million people and 6,300 square miles of farmland.

Following on from yesterday’s report from Chatham House criticising the government’s policies supporting the burning of biomass for power, a number of publications have also hit out. The New Scientist says: “Supporters of bioenergy claim the industry is only using waste from sawmills and such, rather than whole trees. Producing energy from genuine wood waste that would otherwise be left to rot can indeed be better than burning fossil fuels. But in reality, there simply is not enough waste wood to meet demand.” In the main slot on the Daily Mail‘s opinion pages, Christopher Booker calls the policies “idiocy”. An editorial in the Sun, says: “Our politicians have a shameful record for hare-brained, ineffective eco fads that saddle the public with a massive bill. They urged us to buy diesels to cut CO2. Now we’re told to scrap them. They deluded themselves sun and wind would power Britain while failing to build vital power stations. The green levies they hit us with continue to soar. Many schemes will do little for ­climate change. Some could even worsen it.” Carbon Brief summarised the report’s conclusions in a detailed piece yesterday.

Photovoltaic cells and wind turbines still generate only 7% of the world’s electricity yet something remarkable is happening, says an Economist editorial today. “From being peripheral to the energy system just over a decade ago, they are now growing faster than any other energy source and their falling costs are making them competitive with fossil fuels. BP, an oil firm, expects renewables to account for half of the growth in global energy supply over the next 20 years. It is no longer far-fetched to think that the world is entering an era of clean, unlimited and cheap power. About time, too.” A separate article looks at how digitalisation, smart meters and batteries are enabling companies and households to smooth out their electricity demand.

An increase in Arctic sea ice cover between 1950 and 1975 was likely caused by the cooling influence of human-caused air pollution, a new study says. Sulphate aerosols, formed from sulphur dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, reflect sunlight back into space and cool the Earth’s surface. Using climate model simulations, the researchers show that the cooling effect of aerosols offset warming from increasing greenhouse gases over the mid-twentieth century, resulting in the expansion of sea ice cover.

Ocean fertilisation as a negative emissions technology has the potential to sequester around 15% of annual global CO2 emissions, a new study suggests. The approach involves seeding the ocean with macronutrients to boost primary production where nitrogen and phosphorus are limited. This may be a more effective method than fertilising areas with limited iron, the researchers say. However, environmental risks have yet to be evaluated fully, the study notes, which could “limit the scale of implementation”.