Britain is missing the opportunity to lead the global wave and tidal energy sector due to a lack of government support, UK developers have told the Guardian. While the UK is currently seen as a world leader in capturing renewable energy from the oceans, companies are already heading for new shores. Despite government funding for research and development, UK support to put the devices into commercial use is now missing. “It seems daft,” said one Scottish official: “The UK seems to have given up. France says it wants to be a world leader, Canada says it wants to be a world leader, but there can only be one world leader”. The CEO of one company says backing new nuclear plants but not the tidal barrage scheme in Swansea is a “huge mistake”. “The withdrawal of existing support systems – which are peanuts when compared to the huge subsidies for the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant – leaves the industry without support,” he said. “I will just turn my back on the UK and go elsewhere.” Elsewhere, the European Commission has issued a “positive” opinion on a proposed new nuclear power plant project at Wylfa Newydd in Wales, reports Reuters, saying it would not have health or environmental impacts on other member states.

Norway yesterday tested a two-seater electric plane and predicted a start to passenger flights by 2025. Transport Minister Ketil Solvik-Olsen took a few minutes’ flight around Oslo airport in an Alpha Electro G2 plane, built by Pipistrel in Slovenia. “This is … a first example that we are moving fast forward” toward greener aviation, Solvik-Olsen told Reuters. He said plane makers such as Boeing and Airbus were developing electric aircraft and that falling battery prices made it feasible to reach a government goal of making all domestic flights in Norway electric by 2040. BBC News has a video of the test flight. Elsewhere in Norway news, Reuters also reports that the Ministry of Oil and Energy has awarded 12 new licences to explore for oil and gas in and around the Arctic.

Many EU countries are failing on the objectives they committed to under the Paris Agreement, according to a new report from NGO Climate Action Network (Can) Europe. The report ranks EU nations according to their progress towards existing emissions targets and ambition beyond them. Sweden tops the ranking, followed by Portugal and France, while the bottom three are Estonia, Ireland and Poland. Wendel Trio, director of Can Europe, lamented a widespread lack of determination: “Countries urgently need to improve their ranking by speaking out and acting in favour of more ambitious climate and energy policies and targets domestically and at EU-level.” The Irish Times also picks up on Ireland’s second-from-last ranking. Meanwhile, Climate Home News also reports that Europe’s biggest coal states have pushed for climate action that protects workers and the economy. At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, an annual meeting of 30-35 climate officials from around the world, co-hosts Germany and Poland stressed the importance of keeping public support for the shift to a carbon neutral society. “We want climate action which is not a wrecking ball but can be safe for the future and good for the economy,” said German environment minister Svenja Schulze at a press conference.

Scotland’s more ambitious pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050, rather than 80%, will cost an additional £13bn, the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail reports. Detailed financial projections lodged alongside the new legislation reveal the expected costs over the next three decades. The emissions cuts are likely to rely on phasing out conventional cars and stepping up expansion of green energy, including onshore wind, says the Mail. The Scottish Government expects the costs to be shared between public bodies, individuals and businesses. The Scottish edition of the Daily Express also has the story, and a lead editorial, but neither are yet available online.

A plan for the UK to ban petrol, diesel and most hybrid cars by 2040 is set to be watered down, with ministers now referring to it as a “mission”. Michael Gove announced last July that the government’s “Road to Zero Strategy” would see an outright ban on petrol, diesel and certain hybrid cars. But Gove has faced resistance from colleagues who are concerned about the impact on the automotive industry. New, weaker language is now being considered by ministers suggests that the government’s “mission” is to put the UK at the forefront of design and manufacturing of zero-emission vehicles and to ensure the elimination of polluting cars from the streets by 2040.

Foreign aid should be diverted to green projects to tackle issues such as plastic waste, climate change and loss of habitats, says a report by two Conservative thinktanks. Bright Blue and the Conservative Environment Network argue that the Government should raise £1bn for a “Sir David Attenborough fund” to protect nature in developing countries. However, Attenborough has asked the thinktanks not to use his name in the proposals, reports the Times. His spokesman said he did not object to spending more aid money on wildlife, but wanted to avoid being drawn into party politics.

The White House was highly sceptical of the idea put forward by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt for a “red team-blue team” debate on climate science. Emails obtained under a Freedom of Information request reveal that Mike Catanzaro, President Trump’s top energy adviser, emailed Samantha Dravis, the head of the EPA’s policy office, saying the planned review “seems to be getting out of control”. There was a constant “push and pull” between EPA and the White House last year over the idea, a former administration official told E&E News, with the White House “just trying to stall it.” The Hill also has the story.

“On June 23, 1988, a sultry day in Washington, James Hansen told Congress and the world that global warming wasn’t approaching — it had already arrived.” So begins a feature by AP reporter Seth Borenstein and data journalist Nicky Forster on how the Earth’s climate has changed in the 30 years that followed Hansen’s famous testimony to Congress. They catalogue both the global changes – such as melting polar ice and more extreme weather events – to the local impacts being felt across the US. Sea level rise in particular provides a “fitting metaphor for climate change”, the article concludes: “We’re in deep, and getting deeper”. An accompanying interactive maps temperature rise by US county for the past three decades, while both the AP and the Guardian carry interviews with Hansen.

The reason that different climate models project different amounts of Arctic sea-ice loss can be traced back to differences in how they simulate seasonal growth and melt, new research suggests. “The [findings] induce a transition of the Arctic towards a state with enhanced volume seasonality but reduced interannual volume variability and persistence, before summer ice-free conditions eventually occur,” the researchers say.

Local management strategies could increase a reef’s resilience to coral bleaching, new research finds. The study, conducted in the Caribbean, finds that removing snails from brain corals before a major bleaching event lessened the effects of bleaching, including coral mortality.

A new research paper offers the “Buddhist perspective” on climate engineering, defined as the “large-scale manipulation of the environment as a proposed means to counteract anthropogenic climate change”. The researchers say: “We show that as one of the world’s major faiths, Buddhism can provide valuable insights and perspectives for the evolving global discourse on Climate Engineering methods, and that it advocates some basic requirements concerning their further development and possible future deployment.”