There is widespread coverage of a speech to MPs by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg. She told a meeting in parliament that the UK was being “irresponsible” by supporting shale gas fracking, airport expansion and the continued exploitation of North Sea oil and gas reserves, reports BBC News. The meeting was attended by environment secretary Michael Gove and the leaders of the Labour Party, Greens and Liberal Democrats, but not prime minister Theresa May, notes a Press Association piece saying she was “empty chaired”. In a frontpage story, the Times says Thunberg “inspires Britain to act on climate change”. Responding to her words, Gove has pledged tougher action to cut emissions, the Times reports. It quotes Gove saying: “I recognise we have not done nearly enough to deal with the problem of climate change.” The Press Association also has a story on Gove’s comments. The Guardian also reports the meeting in its frontpage under the headline: “Thunberg’s message to MPs: you lied over climate.” A second story in the Guardian covers Thunberg’s comments on UK support for fracking and new runways, which she called “beyond absurd”. Reuters, Financial Times, Press Association, MailOnline and Sky News all cover the story, which featured on four UK newspaper front pages: the Times, the Guardian, Metro and i news. Reuters has a video of Thunberg’s speech while the Guardian has a transcript. BBC News has now published a video of Thunberg’s interview with Radio 4’s Today programme, which first aired on Tuesday.

The opposition Labour Party has backed the Extinction Rebellion protestors in London during a debate in parliament, reports the Guardian. Shadow energy minister Barry Gardiner compared the protests to the suffragette and anti-apartheid movements, the paper reports, quoting him saying: “All of those victories were won by citizens uniting against injustice, making their voice heard. And Extinction Rebellion and the school climate strikers are doing just that.” Climate minister Claire Perry dismissed the protestors’ calls to declare a “climate emergency”, reports the Press Association, adding that this was “despite expressing sympathy with [their] message”. BusinessGreen reports that the Confederation of British Industry gave a “qualified welcome” to the protests, saying they are asking “absolutely the right questions”. A second Press Association story reports that the Extinction Rebellion protestors are targeting parliament as MPs return from Easter recess. The Guardian reports police warnings that protestors face arrest if they block roads around parliament, while the Financial Times says that “dozens” have been charged following earlier protests across London. The Daily Telegraph says a government transport adviser is among those to have been charged. The Guardian has a short video tracking “a week of protest in three minutes”.

Methane and CO2 escaping from melting permafrost in the Arctic will add up to $70tn (£54tn) to the global cost of tackling climate change between now and 2300, according to a study covered by the Guardian. Scientists predict the loss of heat-reflecting white ice in the region combined with the gases escaping from beneath the ice are set to amplify warming by nearly 5%. The researchers, publishing their findings in Nature Communications, said costs could be minimised if the more ambitious targets laid out by the Paris Agreement are met. The study was also covered by MailOnline and InsideClimate News.

Billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg is to fill the funding gap left for UN climate negotiations left by the US administration, reports Climate Home News. Bloomberg will contribute $5.5m on top of a $4.5m payment made last year, it reports, saying the money will cover the core administrative costs of the UNFCCC’s headquarters in Bonn.

“Nobody could have predicted that a Swedish teenager would shift the terms of the global climate debate in the way that Greta Thunberg has done,” begins an editorial in the Guardian marking her visit to the UK this week. It continues: “[Thunberg’s] clarity and urgency have cut through layers of obfuscation and helplessness – and forced climate change up the agenda.” In its cover story, i-Dmagazine describes in an interview Thunberg as “the girl who changed the world”. In the Daily Telegraph, former Conservative leader William Hague writes under the headline: “The time for denial is over. Conservatives have to take the climate crisis seriously.” Hague refers back to his time as a 16-year-old giving a speech to the Conservative Party conference, explaining: “No one sits up to listen more than I do when a 16-year-old activist takes the stage, in this case the climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg.” Hague adds: “It is time to recognise that these young activists are indeed focused on the right issue. The solutions presented by protestors in London or by Green parties around the world may be ill thought-out, but the analysis is now hard to gainsay.” In the Daily Mail, columnist Sarah Vine says she is “warming to charming Greta”. Vine is married to environment secretary Michael Gove, one of the UK politicians to meet Thunberg in parliament yesterday. The Sun hands its lead opinion spot to Spectator columnist Ross Clark, who says of the Extinction Rebellion protests: “[W]hat really matters is what happens to those who were arrested”. He adds: “Extinction Rebellion, as an organisation, should be fined at least the full cost of the policing operation of the past week, if not the full economic cost borne by businesses which have been disrupted.” For Politico EU, Climate Home News reporter Megan Darby writes under the headline: “Why we need Extinction Rebellion.”

A new series of articles in the Financial Times looks at the prospects for cutting emissions in different parts of the UK economy. In a feature looking at the power sector, Leslie Hook points to the Easter weekend record of 90 hours without coal on the grid, but asks if renewables can continue to drive cuts in emissions. She notes: “Despite the progress in the power sector, the country is not on track to achieve its existing decarbonisation targets, which run until 2032.” Carbon Briefrecent looked at government projections, showing the UK is set to miss those targets by wider margins than previously expected. A second article in the Financial Times series, published a day earlier, looks at the potential of hydrogen heating to decarbonise UK homes.

“A ‘green new deal’ has become the talk of the town in many of the world’s capitals,” writes Michel Barnier in a comment for Project Syndicate republished by Climate Home News. The senior EU official is currently chief Brexit negotiator for the bloc. Barnier continues: “Now is the time to build on grassroots momentum and make Green Europe the number-one priority for the coming years.” He says the EU should become carbon neutral by 2050. Barnier concludes: “Not everything can be done overnight. But we can no longer close our eyes and lungs to what is happening to our environment. The best time to launch a Green EU Deal was years ago. The next-best time is now.” Writing in the Guardian, former Greek finance minister Yannis Varoufakis and David Adler of the Democracy in Europe Movement back a green new deal on an international scale. They argue: “Several countries have proposed their own versions of a green new deal, but climate change knows no borders. We need a global response.”

Arctic feedback processes in response to warming, such as thawing permafrost and melting sea ice, could result in additional damages for the global economy that run into trillions of dollars, a new study suggests. Using an integrated assessment model, the researchers investigate “nonlinear” Arctic feedbacks and their subsequent impacts on the global climate and economy under the Paris Agreement limits. Feedbacks lead to significant increases in the “mean discounted economic effect of climate change”, the study finds, amounting to +4.0% ($24.8tn) under 1.5C of warming, +5.5% ($33.8tn) under 2C, and +4.8% ($66.9tn) under mitigation levels consistent with the current national pledges

For many regions of the world, the occurrence of extreme temperatures in future depends on the emissions reductions made by the major emitters of EU, US and China, a new study says. The researchers calculate country‐level contributions to future temperature extremes based on current emissions policies and sequential mitigation efforts, using a new metric called the “Contribution to Excess Risk Ratio”. They demonstrate this ratio for the major emitters of the EU, US and China, showing that through stronger Paris‐era climate pledges, “major emitters can reduce the frequency of future extremes and their own calculated contributions to these temperature extremes”.

Even if the US, EU, China and India strengthened their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement by 2050, the rest of the world would need to drop to virtually zero emissions by 2030 in order to meet the 1.5C warming limit, a new study says. The study illustrates “the dilemma between a ‘carbon law’ (halving emissions every decade) at the global level and the nationally determined contributions submitted at the country level”. The findings suggest “real progress toward the Paris Agreement goal awaits an effective commitment by leading countries to undertake breakthrough research and development of low‐, zero‐, or even negative‐carbon‐emissions energy technologies that can be deployed at scale in the developing world”.