The “long-awaited deal” to reopen the strait of Hormuz, announced on Sunday, sent oil prices “to their lowest levels since early March”, reports the New York Times. The Guardian says: “The price of Brent crude dropped 5% to below $83 (£62) a barrel as the new trading week began…Wholesale gas prices fell 6% in Europe.” Major Wall Street banks have also cut oil price forecasts for upcoming quarters, reports Bloomberg. Industry officials tell Reuters that a “full return to pre-war production and refining levels is likely to take weeks, months or even years”. Experts tell the Associated Press that “even after oil starts flowing again from the Middle East, it could take a while for consumers to see a difference at local fuel pumps, supermarkets and other places they shop”. The chief of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, also “warned it would take time for energy and other supply disruptions to dissipate”, reports Agence France-Presse.

The Associated Press reports that Democratic senators, one Republican and two Democratic House committees sent letters to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) “asking it to reverse course on its plan to dismantle a sprawling ocean monitoring network”. The newswire adds that House of Representative lawmakers also “accus[ed] the agency of acting illegally.” The move was made after the NSF ordered the removal of instruments from the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which tracks “ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change and extreme weather, producing data freely available to the public and informing more than 500 scientific publications”, the Associated Press says. The newswire notes that this is “part of a broader retreat from environmental and climate-related science under president Donald Trump’s Republican administration”. 

MORE ON US 

• Seven states relying on the Colorado river “can’t agree on a fair way” to divide up water supplies which are “dwindling to levels that haven’t been seen in decades”, reports the New York Times. 
• The Guardian reports: “Trump wants to put a $75m coal terminal in this liberal California city. Residents aren’t having it.” 

China has released a three-year action plan to accelerate energy-saving and carbon-reduction upgrades across key industries, reports state news agency Xinhua. It says efforts will focus on nine sectors with high energy consumption and carbon emissions, including steel, electrolytic aluminium, oil refining, methanol and coal-fired power generation. The new plan, released by the top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and other departments, is designed to “expand effective investment, promote industrial upgrading, foster new drivers of green development and support the country’s carbon-peaking goal”, says industry news outlet BJX News. BJX News carries an explainer saying the key industries are China’s top priorities for “improving energy efficiency, reducing coal use and cutting carbon emissions”. The policy was released at the launch of the 2026 National Energy Conservation Publicity Week, reports Xinhua, adding that 11 enterprises from the key sectors issued “commitments for energy-saving and carbon-reduction” during the 15th “five-year plan” period.

MORE ON CHINA

• Bloomberg reports that China plans to scale up “new energy” heavy trucks, with a 40% market penetration target and a fleet exceeding 1.6m vehicles by 2030.
• China’s NEA issued a notice on organising pilot projects for the “high-quality development and utilisation” of geothermal energy, reports BJX News.
• CGTN reports that local governments in Guangdong and Guangxi have increased “flood control emergency response” levels following ongoing heavy rainfall. 
• The South China Morning Post says that the UAE is “fast-tracking its push” to tap into China’s low-carbon technologies. People’s Daily: “China’s solar industry supports Iraq’s green energy transition.”
• A Global Times editorial says China’s energy system will “continue to strengthen” as the “green transition” accelerates and international energy cooperation deepens.
• China’s “sustainable aviation fuel” needs effective carbon credits and technological breakthroughs to “boost” uptake, reports China Securities Journal. BJX News cautions against ignoring the “basic goal of profitability” in clean-energy industries.

More than one billion children around the world are exposed to a combination of at least three climate hazards, such as drought and extreme heat, says a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse. It says that almost all children, around 2.3bn, are exposed to at least one risk. The newswire quotes one author of the report, Tom Slaymaker, saying that there are risk “hot spots”, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of south Asia. Reuters notes that Cambodia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Pakistan and Somalia are identified as the “most vulnerable countries” in the report.

Members of the charging industry and an electric vehicle company have pushed back against UK government plans to “further weaken electric car targets”, reports the Guardian. It says the “furious backlash” came after reports that the government is expected to “reduce a target for pure electric cars from 80% of all sales by 2030 to 50%”. The Guardian quotes Octopus Energy chief Greg Jackson saying: “The fossil-fuel market is shrinking globally and our best hope is to speed up development of electric vehicles, not go the other way.” The Times covers a report which says weakening the target would “give Chinese car manufacturers an edge and cost billions of pounds in investment”. The newspaper notes: “The changes, likely to be announced in the next few weeks, will be subject to consultation and follow pressure from the automotive industry and unions concerned about job losses.” [See Carbon Brief’s new analysis on electric-vehicle drivers saving more than £1,100 per year in fuel costs.] 

MORE ON UK

• Former health secretary Wes Streeting is today due to “announce plans to rip up planning laws and overturn [energy secretary] Ed Miliband’s ban on new fossil-fuel production” if he were to become prime minister, reports the Independent. 
• The UK could “miss out on £250bn” over the next decade if it does not reduce “chronically high energy costs”, says a report covered by the Times. 
• BusinessGreen covers a report which finds that “accelerating electrification across the UK could create around 250,000 [jobs] and unlock faster economic growth”. 
• The Daily Telegraph says energy analysts believe the El Niño weather phenomenon will “intensify competition between Europe and Asia for gas needed to generate power”. 
• UK firm Rolls-Royce was selected to supply Swedish energy company Vattenfall with small modular reactors “in a deal worth several billion pounds”, reports Reuters. 
• Health alerts have been issued for parts of the UK as temperatures could reach 30C, reports Sky News.

Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist Mark Gongloff writes: “The US insurance industry recently joined the fossil-fuel industry in its fight to avoid being sued over the damage oil, gas and coal emissions have done to the planet.” He says this is a “perplexing choice” as insurers are “supposedly among the world’s biggest sufferers of those same climate-fueled losses”. But Gongloff notes that, among other things, insurers “earn steady income covering fossil-fuel projects” and also invest in oil, gas and coal companies. He adds: “It’s easy to suspect insurers are willing to accept a little climate chaos in exchange for the reliable income stream of fossil-fuel investments and underwriting…How long that status quo can stay comfortable for insurers is the question..”

MORE COMMENT 

• Analysis by Guardian energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose says that a return to oil and gas market normality is “months away and relies on the cooperation of the Iranian regime with the White House”. 
• Adam Smith, former chief of staff to Conservative former UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt, writes in the Daily Telegraph about energy secretary Ed Miliband’s “net zero zealotry”.