The UK government has confirmed plans to take a “special share” in the £20bn Sizewell C nuclear plant, as part of a deal that would see it invest 20% in the project, the Times reports. It adds that the deal is “expected to result in China’s CGN losing the minority stake it holds in the project amid security concerns”. While the government noted that the the plant was at risk of cost overruns and delays, its analysis – the full version of which was redacted from documents – found that despite this, funding the plant on consumer bills through the “regulated asset base” model was “estimated to reduce costs to consumers of a low-carbon electricity system, in the majority of scenarios which have been modelled”, the newspaper reports. Bloomberg notes that the UK bought the option in Sizewell C’s holding company, owned by EDF and CGN, in January for £100m and will convert it into an equity stake if the project reaches a final investment decision. The Daily Telegraph – which features the story on its frontpage – says the government’s new funding model was intended to incentivise private investors and would end the use of Chinese state companies, with the UK “likely to demand similar national security powers in all future nuclear plants built in Britain”. According to the Guardian, the government is “attempting to inject urgency into a notoriously slow-moving industry amid a drive to boost Britain’s domestic energy supplies”, noting prime minister Boris Johnson’s plans to approve up to eight reactors by the end of the decade. The Times‘ chief business commentator Alistair Osborne describes the funding model being proposed as the “financial bedrock of Boris Johnson’s fantasy plans to approve eight new reactors by 2030”.

Meanwhile, Sky News reports that despite lobbying other nations to “consign coal to history” while hosting the COP26 climate summit, the UK government has struck a deal with EDF to keep West Burton coal power station online this winter “rather than closing it down in October as planned”. It notes that there are also “ongoing” discussions to keep two further plants open amid uncertainty around energy supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Twitter thread by Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans notes that the extension only matters for climate “symbolically”.

In more UK power news, Bloomberg reports that 12 utilities will take part in a new trading platform that seeks “to overcome accusations of greenwashing that have undermined the credibility of renewable energy certificates”.

A group of 10 EU countries, including Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, has warned against watering down its flagship climate and energy plan designed to align its economy with 2030 climate goals, Bloomberg reports. The call comes several days before a key vote on the issue in the European Parliament and meetings of EU governments, but also as the on-going energy crisis prompts fears that “some European governments may now want to slow the energy transition”, it continues. The piece adds that EU governments will be meeting in the coming days for negotiations about the so-called “Fit for 55” climate plan. Reuters says that “finding agreement has proved difficult”,with the EU assembly rejecting the plan’s carbon market proposal last month and “lawmakers at odds about how ambitious Europe’s CO2-cutting policies should be”. Another Reuters piece states that EU countries are “considering a one-year delay to the launch of a new European carbon market for buildings and transport” in a bid to find a compromise.

There is also more reporting on the EU’s co-called “green taxonomy” with a story in EurActiv about lawmakers in the European Parliament forming a cross-party coalition that is trying to block nuclear energy and gas from receiving a green investment label. There will be a decisive vote on the matter at the Parliament’s July plenary, it adds.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that a heatwave continues to loom over much of Europe and “climate change is set to make weather even hotter”. It notes that a high-pressure system is hovering in the atmosphere over Europe, trapping the heat in a “heat dome” and “people in Paris, Rome and London all were prepping for torrid conditions”. In Spain, the Independent says that temperatures have hit 43C in the nation’s hottest spring heatwave in decades. The same publication also notes that while much of the UK press is “breathlessly reporting the nation is set for the ‘hottest summer ever’ with ‘at least five heatwaves’ on the horizon”, this is “not a cause for celebration”. The Financial Times reports that in Greece, the nation’s first “climate crisis minister” Christos Stylianides is preparing for a summer of heatwaves by “stepping up its efforts to combat wildfires, hiring more specialised firefighters and planes and increasing spending”.

Around 200,000 homes and businesses in England face being lost to rising sea levels by the 2050s, according to a new study reported by MailOnline. The findings show that the nation could face around 35cm of sea level rise compared to historic levels within 30 years, it continues. The outlet adds that the news comes a week after Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, said some of Britain’s seaside towns and villages may have to be abandoned due to climate impacts. The Guardian, which features the story on its frontpage, notes that these “lost” homes are ones that either cannot be saved, or which would be too expensive to try to save with seawalls and other coastal defences. It notes that some of the areas most at risk include North Somerset, Sedgemoor, Wyre, North East Lincolnshire and Swale. Thee newspaper adds that previous estimates of the number of homes at risk were lower, “as government estimates have not kept up with climate science”. The Press Association via the Independent reports that for one thousand miles of the English coast, there will be “high pressure to rethink the current policy to hold the line as it may become unfeasible due to rising costs, or technically impossible”. BBC News also covers the story.

Meanwhile, in the US the Hill reports that extreme flooding in Yellowstone National Park could be a “thousand-year event”, according to National Park Service officials, albeit one that seems “to be happening more and more frequently”. Bloomberg notes that climate change trends show “spring rain is on the rise and heat arrives early”, a combination that makes flooding more likely.

The £1,500 grants towards the cost of new electric vehicles in the UK were brought to an end on Tuesday, nearly a year earlier than expected, the Daily Telegraph reports. The government states that the scheme has achieved its goal of “kickstarting” the market ahead of the nation’s 2030 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars, the newspaper continues, adding that instead the focus of funding will be on charging infrastructure. However, the story notes that there are concerns among industry experts that ending the grant will put new electric cars out of reach as people face rising fuel prices. BusinessGreen reports that industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) notes that the move makes the UK only major European market to have no upfront incentives for electric vehicle buyers, “despite having some of the most ambitious plans for consumer uptake”. Initially introduced in 2011, the scheme initially offered drivers £5,000 off a new plug-in electric or hybrid car, but the subsidy has been repeatedly cut to a level of £1,500 per car, the news website adds. According to the i newspaper, the government argues that sales are now growing significantly without the help of the grant, with sales of fully electric cars growing 70 % last year despite shrinking grant sizes. Analysis in BBC News notes that with the government’s incoming “zero emissions vehicle mandate”, rather than subsidising electric car sales, it will be penalising manufacturers that do not sell enough of them.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph says Dutch company Lightyear is starting deliveries of the world’s first commercial solar car this year, fitted with curved solar panels across the roof and bonnet.

Asked by Politico if she believed a return to the White House for former US president Donald Trump – or another Republican with similar climate policies – would end any hope of hitting the Paris Agreement’s lower 1.5C climate change target, outgoing UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa answered: “Yeah. Well, yes.” Speaking to the news outlet at UN climate talks in Bonn, Espinosa said that during Trump’s presidency “that leadership was not there anymore” from the second-largest emitter and biggest economy.

The Guardian reports that a “brutal” heatwave has “prompted India to take a strong stand in Bonn”, where officials are meeting to prepare for the next UN climate conference in Egypt. In particular it says the nation is calling for funding to deal with the “loss and damage” caused by climate-related events. According to Climate Home News, veteran Saudi Arabian climate negotiator Ayman Shasly has stepped back from his role in international negotiations. (Carbon Brief conducted a rare interview with Shasly back in 2018 at COP24 in Poland.)

Meanwhile, speaking at another conference in Austria, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has warned that spending more money on new coal, oil and gas as a result of the war in Ukraine is “delusional”, according to BBC News. While many countries want to increase their fossil fuel production to depend less on Russian supplies, Guterres said that more coal will only reinforce the “scourge of war, pollution and climate catastrophe”, it continues. Reuters reports on the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign to drive faster climate action, which has laid out a tougher set of minimum standards for companies looking to make emissions-cutting pledges.

China has “detailed measures to boost its climate change monitoring and risk prevention capabilities”, reports Xinhua. The country “seeks to basically build a climate-resilient society by 2035”, according to the national climate change adaptation strategy 2035, jointly released by 17 departments including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, adds the state news agency. Xinhua says that the move marks a “significant step forward” in the country’s “efforts to enhance its climate resilience”.

Meanwhile, Power Construction Corporation of China – the country’s biggest dam builder – says the nation is “launching an even-larger-than-expected campaign” to build hydro energy storage to “complement renewable power”, reports Bloomberg. It adds that the construction will include “more than 200 pumped hydro stations with a combined capacity of 270GW (gigawatts) by 2025”, according to the Communist Party-run People’s Daily. A separate Bloomberg report says that China has reduced air pollution “nearly as much in seven years as the US did in three decades”, which the outlet explains helps to “bring down average global smog levels” in the process. Additionally, an analysis by Reuters says that China’s “small, privately owned oil refiners” are “raising output on hopes of recovering fuel demand”. The move comes as Covid-19 curbs “ease” and refining margins “swell” due to an “increasing supply of cheap Russian oil”, the article adds, citing “traders and analysts”.

Elsewhere, Yicai reports that China is “considering renewing its new energy vehicle tax break policy” that expires in “December”, according to a vice minister. Finally, another Bloomberg article says that China’s economy is “teetering on the brink of a contraction” in the second quarter of 2022. It says that factories in China are now “resuming production, but a full recovery will take time”. The outlet adds that “real-time data on truck flows” in Shanghai and for the country show activity is “not even back at the level before the lockdown, let alone rapidly expanding”.

The government of Western Australian will shut the state’s last coal-fired power unit before the end of the decade and spend an extra half a billion dollars to support jobs for former workers, the Guardian reports. The 340 megawatt (MW) Collie plant will exit the market by the end of 2027, followed by the 854MW Muja plant in 2029, it adds. The newspaper notes that the state will therefore join South Australia, the Northern Territory, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania to have coal-free power once its remaining privately owned 416MW Bluewaters plant closes.

Reuters reports on oil-and-gas firm BP buying a 40.5% stake and becoming the operator of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in Western Australia, a site that could become one of the world’s biggest producers of green hydrogen made from renewable power. The piece notes the hubs plan to develop up to 26 gigawatts (GW) of wind-and-solar capacity, which could be used to produce 1.6m tonnes of green hydrogen. According to the Financial Times, this is one of BP’s “biggest renewable energy bets yet”, noting its plans to build or acquire 50GW of renewable power by 2030. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that TotalEnergies will buy a 25% stake in Adani New Industries, as part of a deal to develop “the world’s biggest green hydrogen ecosystem” in India, a nation that plans to produce 5m tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2030 as part of its net-zero plans.

Finally, Financial Review reports that the Australian Energy Market Operator has taken the “unprecedented step” of closing down the spot electricity market to deal with the country’s energy crisis.

Due to war and sanctions, inflation in Germany is higher than it has been for almost 50 years, says Die Welt, adding that the most recent price increases have been “up 7.9% on the previous year”. This affects every German citizen, explains the media outlet, with electricity increasing in price by 22% over 12 months, premium petrol by 37%, diesel by 52%, natural gas by 55% and heating oil by 96%. Jörg Krämer, a chief economist at German Commerzbank, says that the European Central Bank has set itself a target of limiting general inflation to 2%. However, according to its forecasts, the goal will not be reached before 2024, says Die Welt quoting the conclusion of Krämer: “Germany has a serious inflation problem.”

Meanwhile, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that Russian state-backed Gazprom “throttles the flow of gas through the Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 by more than a third”. Gazprom had previously reported “technical problems” at a compressor station, a story details. “The decline also follows the lack of gas volumes as a result of the delivery stop to the Netherlands and Denmark”, said a report on Tuesday. The outlet says that instead of the usual 167m cubic metres, the pipeline can now only carry 100m per day. The New York Times also has a story, adding that “a machine used in shipping Russian natural gas to Germany [through Nord Stream 1] has been caught up in Canadian sanctions imposed against Moscow”. Separately, the German government will lend $10.4bn to rescue a former arm of Gazprom PJSC that was brought under the control of the country’s energy regulator in April, according to people familiar with the plan, writes Bloomberg. It adds that the trusteeship will be extended beyond the end of September when it was due to expire, and the name of the company, currently Gazprom Germania GmbH, will be changed to Securing Energy for Europe GmbH.

Elsewhere, Clean Energy Wire reports about Bavaria-Scotland plans for cooperation on green hydrogen. It adds that Bavarian economy minister Hubert Aiwanger and Scottish business and trade minister Ivan McKee also discussed the possibility of transporting green hydrogen from Scotland to Bavaria. The news continues that the agreement “sees Bavaria as an importer of green hydrogen from Scotland while Bavaria plans to supply Scotland with the necessary technology”.

A comment piece by Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley in the Financial Times begins by reflecting on G7 finance ministers and central bankers gathering at the US Treasury amid the financial crisis of 2008, when they agreed to “take decisive action and use all available tools” to tackle the issue. “Today we are in the throes of another crisis – an even bigger one. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that the Earth’s average temperature is 1.1C above where it was before European industrialisation. And at 1.5C, the earth’s chemical, biological and physical systems destabilise,” she writes. The prime minister adds that her nation is on the “frontline” as a storm can destroy 100% of its national income “in a few hours”. She says that when the G7 meets again in Bavaria on June 26, amid the war in Ukraine and food and energy inflation, “the biggest crisis facing humanity must also be firmly on the agenda”. Mottley calls for a new financial architecture including natural disaster clauses in all government bonds, which would mean “debt servicing is automatically suspended when an independently verified disaster hits and put back on at the end of the term with compensating interest”. If every country had had such clauses during the pandemic, she says that “developing countries would have had access to a substantial store of additional liquidity”. She concludes: “This is all unprecedented, but doing nothing is the riskiest option. The wave is coming.”

New research estimates that in a high emission scenario, deep-ocean carbon accumulation in the Weddell Sea will “rapidly” drop to 40% of its 1990 rates by 2100. The authors use a model including ice-shelf cavities and oceanic carbon cycling to determine the rate of carbon accumulation over 1990-2100. They find carbon accumulation rate will rise to four-times its 1990 levels by the 2080s, before dropping rapidly by the end of the century. They add: “We attribute this decline to an increased presence of modified Warm Deep Water on the southern Weddell Sea continental shelf, a 16% reduction in sea-ice formation, and a 79% increase in ice-shelf basal melt.”