India’s Meteorological Department has issued the first heatwave alert of the year, warning that parts of western India could reach temperatures of 37C, the Washington Post reports. The paper adds that some parts of India are already recording temperatures usually seen in mid-March. “The abnormal temperatures are worrying experts who say India’s spring season – crucial for wheat production – is shrinking dangerously,” the paper adds. Reuters says that India has set up a panel of officials to assess the impact of rising temperatures on wheat production. Meanwhile, the Times of India reports that this is the earliest heatwave ever issued in much of the country. It adds: “Large parts of west and northwest India, as well as many Himalayan towns, have recorded temperatures 5-10C higher than what is normal for this time of the year. The capital had a maximum of 31.5C, and the day temperature is likely to remain at these levels for another three to four days.” The Times covers the news under the headline: “Climate change blamed as India misses out on spring weather.”

In light of the extreme temperatures, Bloomberg reports that the Indian government will “force” some of the country’s biggest coal power planets to operate at full capacity, as the country prepares to meet a surge in electricity demand. The paper says that under the “emergency rule”, power stations operating on imported coal will be asked to run at full capacity for three months to ease the burden on domestic coal supplies. The paper continues: “Several parts of the country are witnessing unusually warm weather for this time of the year and peak electricity demand over the past week is already close to the record levels seen last summer. The government expects peak power demand to reach 229 gigawatts by April, compared with an all-time high of 215 gigawatts seen last summer.” Reuters also covers the story, adding: “Many of India’s power plants that use imported coal, including those owned by Adani Power and Tata Power in the western state of Gujarat, have not operated at full capacity recently because they have found it difficult to compete with power generated from cheap domestic coal.”

New data from the Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) finds that 114 of the 200 regions expected to be most at risk from the impacts of climate change in 2050 are in Asia, the Independent reports. The paper says: “The rankings are the first pass analysis of Gross Domestic Climate Risk (GDCR) that calculated the physical climate risk to the built environment in over 2,600 territories worldwide in 2050. The XDI GDCR dataset compared these states based on modelled projections of damage to buildings and properties from extreme weather and climate change such as flooding, forest fires, heatwaves, and sea-level rise.” A separate story by the Independent lists the 50 areas in the UK “most likely to perish because of climate change”, using data from the same report. It says Greater London and Lincolnshire are in the top 10% of places most at risk.

The Hindu reports that “nine out of 50 regions in the world facing high climate risk to a fragile physical infrastructure fall in India”. These include Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the paper says. The New Indian Express and Hindustan Times also carry the story. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that China is “home to 16 of the 20 global regions most vulnerable to climate change”. The newswire adds that “some of the world’s most important manufacturing hubs [are] at risk from rising water levels and extreme weather”. According to XDI, the “industrialised” Chinese coastal province of Jiangsu, which accounts for a “tenth” of China’s GDP, was “ranked the world’s most vulnerable territory…followed by neighbouring Shandong and the major steel production base of Hebei”, says Reuters, adding that the flood-prone central province of Henan was fourth. XDI chief executive Rohan Hamden is quoted by the newswire saying that “the shift of global manufacturing to Asia has driven a substantial increase in infrastructure investment in already vulnerable regions throughout China, making it more susceptible to the impacts of climate change”. The South China Morning Post also covers the story under the headline: “Half of China’s GDP at risk of climate-related disaster by 2050, Sydney-based research firm XDI says.” (Carbon Brief published an article in October 2022 on “why China’s provinces are so important for action on climate change”.)

A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) says the fossil fuel industry is “failing to tackle methane emissions despite its pledges to uncover and fix leaking infrastructure”, according to Reuters. The newswire says that in 2022, the global energy industry released around 135m tonnes of methane into the atmosphere. This is only slightly below the record amount released in 2019, it adds. The Washington Post says that according to the report, 75% of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector can be reduced with cheap and readily available technologies. The paper quotes IEA executive director, Fatih Birol: “Methane cuts are among the cheapest options to limit near-term global warming…There is just no excuse.” The paper says the report “slammed oil and gas majors’ refusal” to invest in the technologies to cut emissions and compares the money needed with the industry’s “record bumper profits made last year”. Bloomberg notes that “very large leaks” of methane fell by 10%, but adds that “global oil and gas operations still emitted the equivalent of the massive Nord Stream release on average every day”. Separately, Bloomberg quotes the report, which says that “stopping all non-emergency flaring and venting is the single most impactful measure countries can take to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations”. It adds that around 80% of the options to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry would have no net cost, according to the report, because captured gas could be sold at a profit.

The energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cost the equivalent of £1,000 for every adult in the UK, according to new analysis covered by the Guardian. The figure, produced by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, estimates that “had the UK made better progress towards net-zero by improving housing efficiency, producing more wind power and deploying heat pump technology a typical household could have saved up to £1,750 in 2022”, the newspaper says. It continues: “The study estimated that, if a similar crisis happened in 2030 when the UK has more cheap renewables, the annual savings could be about £34bn.”

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that “switching between energy suppliers is expected to return later this year after a two-year pause due to lack of competition amid high bills”. Press Association says that the cost to consumers of electricity and gas “will soar from the beginning of April”. It continues: “The Ofgem price cap on energy bills, which regulates what energy suppliers are able to charge, but not necessarily what households pay, will fall by around £1,000 to £3,295, the analysts said. But, because of the way the government’s energy support works, households will be left paying an extra 20% for their energy and will also not get monthly payments of £66 or £67 towards their energy bills.” The Financial Times reports that campaigners have called on the UK government to freeze household energy costs beyond the end of March. Separately, Press Association reports that the government has charged a new taskforce with “working out how to significantly cut UK energy consumption over the next seven years”.

In other UK news, theTimes reports that “a huge stockpile of coal bought for emergency use in power stations this winter is due to be resold at a loss of tens of millions of pounds to consumers”. According to the paper, National Grid funded the procurement of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of coal worth £369m – none of which has been burned. Separately, the paper says that thanks to a mild winter, coal plants were kept open “at great expense”, but have not generated electricity. Elsewhere, Reuters reports that the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant is likely to cost about 2% more than its last budget estimate, thanks to inflation.

Reuters reports that China’s renewable energy projects are struggling to get access to land, while in some areas, the grid cannot absorb all the power generated, the country’s energy authority said, as it called for further policy support for the fast-growing industry. It adds that Beijing has “spearheaded an ambitious drive to increase the country’s renewable energy capacity in recent years and renewables now account for 31.3% of the country’s total power supply capacity”. Its “rapid growth has put it into competition with other industries, particularly agriculture, for land use, making it increasingly tough to win land rights for installing solar panels”, the article says. Meanwhile, Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data has published an article on her “Sustainability by Numbers” blog, titled: “China is adding solar and wind faster than many of us realise: three charts that put it in perspective.” Bloomberg has a comment piece by David Fickling, a columnist covering energy and commodities, who writes that “China’s coal industry accounts for nearly a fifth of the world’s emissions, a greater volume of greenhouse pollution than every car, train, ship and aircraft in the world. It’s oddly unclear, however, whether that cloud of carbon is growing, or shrinking.” (He links to recent analysis published by Carbon Brief, headlined: “Contradictory coal data clouds China’s CO2 emissions ‘rebound’ in 2022.”)

Elsewhere, an editorial in the South China Morning Post responds to China’s 2023 “No.1 Central Document” “(so-called because it is the first policy document released by China’s state council each year)”. The document emphasises that “rural economy” and “farm-industry technology” lie “at the forefront of China’s great modernisation”, the outlet says. The “strongly worded document” is the latest “show of resolve” by Beijing to aim for “self-sufficiency in the face of concerns that geopolitical uncertainty may put it under pressure in key areas”, the editorial concludes. (Read Carbon Brief’s new guest post on previous “No.1 Central Documents” and what China’s food system means for climate change.)

Finally, state-run newswire Xinhua reports that Chinese scientists, in “collaboration with researchers from the US and Germany”, have “proposed an agricultural carbon reduction solution that could help China achieve carbon neutrality in its food production”, according to the Institute of Soil Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Yan Xiaoyuan, the lead scientist from the CAS Institute of Soil Science, is quoted saying that “this new path [proposed by the research team] can help achieve carbon neutrality in grain production without sacrificing grain output. It can also reduce atmospheric pollution emissions, increase the utilisation rate of fertiliser resources, and increase both environmental and economic benefits by more than 30%.” (Carbon Brief published a China-focused article yesterday titled: “What the world’s largest food system means for climate change.”)

The Guardian covers new research, which finds that stronger El Niño events due to global heating may accelerate “irreversible melting” in the Antarctic. The lead author of the study “suggested stronger El Niños could have a ‘double whammy’ effect as it would lead to worsening extreme weather – heat, drought and bushfire risk in eastern Australia and floods in California, Peru and Chile – and accelerate sea level rise, causing more extreme coastal inundation”, the paper reports.

Elsewhere, the Daily Express has published an “exclusive” on Argentina’s Perito Moreno ice field. It says: “The Perito Moreno ice field defied climate change for decades, neither growing nor retreating despite rising global temperatures. But now slabs weighing many tonnes cascade from the 18,000-year-old glacier’s 230ft-high face with alarming frequency, leaving an eruption of ice and water in their wake.” Separately, the paper warns of the impacts of glacial melting on coastal communities. And a final piece follows a Daily Express reporter into “one of the last magical caves on Perito Moreno”.

Following the announcement that World Bank president David Malpass will step down in June this year, Afsaneh Beschloss, the former treasurer and chief investment officer at the World Bank and current chief executive of global investment firm RockCreek, sets out a roadmap for the World Bank’s future president in the Financial Times. First on Beschloss’ five-point list is the “trillions of dollars” needed to “combat global warming.” Beschloss writes: “The World Bank needs a ‘climate-focused bank-within-a-bank”, as well as a culture focused on “rapid execution and implementation”, using “private-sector expertise to leverage multilateral funding with private capital”. She adds: “The Bank must emphasise how quickly the climate clock is ticking, place itself at the centre of the struggle and acquire, and mobilise, world-class expertise in climate, open AI and technology.” She also says that the World Bank Group’s entire disbursements to combat global warming were “no more than $67bn for the fiscal year 2022”, of which “only a fraction was net disbursements”.

In the Guardian, economics editor Larry Elliot writes under the headline: “It’s high time to rethink how the World Bank operates.” He says: “Certainly, the Bank needs to start punching its weight in a way it hasn’t under Malpass. Sustainable development goals set by the United Nations for 2030 will not be hit on current trends, yet the World Bank has been overly cautious in its lending approach.” However, Elliot says: “The World Bank is being given extra responsibility for climate finance not because it is the ideal choice for the task but because there is no perceived alternative. In an ideal world, there would be a new multilateral bank dedicated to climate finance and energy transition.”

Elsewhere, the Financial Times Lex column says that added mileage for tankers carrying oil products following the European import ban on Russian fuels “effectively cuts ship capacity in an already tight market”. Clarksons, a shipping services provider, expects the mileage per tonne of oil products to increase from less than 3,000 miles in 2020 to more than 3,500 miles in 2023, the column says. Shares of US-listed tanker company Scorpio, worth $3bn, have almost quadrupled in a year as a result, the piece notes.

Finally Camilla Palladino, Lex writer at the Financial Times, says that the “scandal”, in which energy companies forcibly installed prepayment meters in the homes of vulnerable customers “has also sparked a debate about the bigger question of who should pay what in the UK energy system”. She continues: “Rising prices have increased fuel poverty. The number of households not paying their bills rose above 2m in the middle of last year, according to regulator Ofgem. Energy companies do not elicit much sympathy, but that is a worry for them.” She goes on to say that the investment needed for the energy transition “exacerbates the problem”, because “it all needs to be paid for somehow, although over time cheaper solar and wind power will offset this”. Solutions include a specially designed social tariff, or allocating more of the fixed costs to energy used at peak times, she concludes.

A “brief communication” paper explores how future changes to the climate phenomenon El Niño could affect the melting of ice shelves and sea ice in the Antarctic. The authors note that a projected increase in variability in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) “has been found to slow future mid-latitude Southern Ocean warming, but how this impacts the Antarctic shelf ocean is unknown”. They show that “the projected 21st century enhancement in ENSO variability probably accelerates Antarctic shelf ocean warming and ice shelf and ice sheet melt, but slows surface warming around sea ice edge and sea ice reduction”.