The Government has given Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridmanseven days to explain why he should not be forced to sell North Seagas assets. Mr Fridman gained control of the UK fields on Monday aspart of a £3.6 billion deal to buy the oil and gas division ofGermany’s RWE. The Government is concerned production at the fieldscould be halted if the West imposes more sanctions on Russia overUkraine, and it therefore wants them sold to a third party.The BBC, The Timesand Reutershave similar coverage.

New limits on air pollution in Europe have been watered downbecause governments are allowing some of the worst polluters tohelp draw up the rules, according to a Greenpeace investigation. Of352 members of an European Union technical working group, 183 areeither employed by the companies that are being regulated, or bylobby groups that represent those companies, the investigationfound. The proposed EU standards on coal emissions will be lessstrict than in China, Greenpeace says.

Energy network companies face investigation by theCompetition and Markets Authority (CMA) after British Gascomplained that the prices they charge are too high. Ofgem lastyear approved plans by five electricity distribution companies tospend £17 billion on their networks over the eight years fromApril. But British Gas has appealed to the CMA, saying it will be”materially affected by the decision”, because it has to pass thecosts on to customers.

Drax has bought Billington Bioenergy (BBE), the UK’s secondlargest wood pellet distributor, as the power generator ramps upits move into the renewable heat market. The acquisition, for anundisclosed fee, will see Drax supply wood pellets through BBE tocommercial and domestic customers as a low carbon alternative tofossil fuels such as heating oil, LPG, and solid fuels.

China will boost efforts this year to rid its addiction tocoal in a bid to reduce emissions as well as cut the energyintensity of its economy, says the National Development and ReformCommission in its annual report. China’s Premier Li Keqiang saysthe government plans to cut the country’s energy intensity by 3.1per cent in 2015, compared with a 4.8 per cent fall in 2014. Lisays China’s economy will target growth of around 7 per cent thisyear, the lowest expansion for a quarter of a century.

The cost of cleaning up nuclear waste at Sellafield inCumbria has increased by £5 billion in less than a year, accordingto the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The total estimated costof the work now stands at £53 billion, up from £48 billion in Marchlast year, the National Audit Office says in a report. The”lifetime cost” of cleaning up Sellafield by 2120 has now more thandoubled in five years, the report says. The Guardianand theBBChave similar coverage.

The number of people affected by river flooding worldwidecould nearly triple in the next 15 years, according to the WorldResources Institute. In the UK, about 76,000 people a year could beat risk of being affected by flooding if defences aren’t improved,it says, and the yearly cost of damage to urban areas could reachmore than £1 billion. The rising risk of flooding is a result ofclimate change and population growth, the report says.

The Times reports on analysis from Carbon Briefshowing that carbondioxide emissions fell by almost a tenth last year. Record warmtemperatures last year helped Britain to take a giant step towardsmeeting its climate change targets, the story says, as millions ofhomes turned off their central heating.

The US Senate failed to override President Barack Obama’sveto of legislation to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline,leaving the controversial project to await an administrationdecision to permit or deny it. The Senate mustered just 62 votes infavour of overriding the veto, short of the two-thirds needed.Republican Senator John Hoeven says pipeline backers will try againto force Obama’s hand, by attaching Keystone approval to anotherbill this year.

2015 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for an internationalagreement for action on climate change. To help prepare for thepotentially game-changing 21st climate summit in Paris beginning inNovember, Fiona Harvey answers some fundamental questions about theUN talks.

Doubt about the science of climate change is a globe-spanningindustry, says Graham Readfearn in The Guardian. There are fourmain cogs to the machine, he says: “conservative ‘free market’thinktanks, public relations groups, fossil fuel organisations andideologically aligned media”. Readfearn looks back at occasionsover the years where “the hood on the climate denial machine hasbeen lifted to reveal its hidden workings”.

Using long term climate predictions, the average amount ofmethane that bubbles out of three lakes in northern Sweden into theatmosphere is predicted to increase by 80 per cent between the1916-1926 decade and the 2040-2079 period, according to newresearch. Present-day seasonal average methane bubbling or’ebullition’ is estimated to have already increased 24 per centsince the 1916-1926 decade.

Heat waves are expected to dramatically increase insectmortality, says new research, and there is an urgent need to assesstheir potential impact. Perhaps unsurprisingly, insects with anatural Arctic distribution have a lower heat tolerance thantemperature species, and both have lower tolerances than speciesthat live everywhere.

A new study finds severe droughts in 2005 and 2010 in theAmazon basin suppressed trees’ ability to photosynthesise. But thescientists found the trees compensated by boosting leaf growth highup in the canopy at the expense of root growth. This meant primaryproduction stayed constant throughout the drought, the study shows.