The world’s richest person, Amazon’s chief executive Jeff Bezos, has announced a $10bn fund to help tackle climate change, according to the New York Times. Titled the “Bezos Earth Fund”, the new initiative will begin issuing funding to scientists, activists and NGOs from this summer, the paper reports. Reuters says Bezos stated in an Instagram post that “climate change is the biggest threat to our planet” and that he wanted to “work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share”. The Financial Times notes that the news comes “at a time when his company is facing intense internal and external criticism over its own environmental impact”, referring to protesting Amazon workers calling on their employer to stronger action on climate change. The Guardian also points out that several workers involved in those protests “were warned to be quiet or face dismissal”. BuzzFeed News reports a “person familiar with the fund” confirmed it would not be used for investments, adding that a statement from a group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice is accusing Amazon of supporting fossil fuel companies and funding climate sceptic think-tanks.

In Russia, the nation’s largest oil producer Rosneft has committed to investing around $5bn in “environmentally friendly” projects such as using “associated petroleum gas” from oil extraction over the next five years, according to Reuters. It notes the plans come after BP, which owns nearly a fifth of Rosneft, last week claimed it would hit net-zero emissions by 2050.

In the UK, five hydrogen projects exploring the fuel’s use as an alternative in the industry and transport sectors have been granted nearly £30m of government funding, the Financial Times reports.

Following storms Ciara and Dennis, the Press Association reports on statements from climate researchers emphasising the clear links between rising global temperatures and heavier rainfall. They tell the news agency this is an “entirely inevitable” consequence of climate change for which the UK is “clearly” not ready. “When you warm the planet, the atmosphere holds more water. In many parts of the world, including the UK, rising temperatures go hand in hand with more rain,” climate scientists Dr Michael Byrne from the University of St Andrews tells PA. The warning comes after new environment secretary George Eustice warned that climate change was driving more extreme weather, with the Daily Mail reporting his comments that he will “never be able to protect every single household” from such events. Another researcher tells the Guardian that “soft solutions” to flooding, such as “managed retreat, sustainable drainage systems and public involvement”, would be vital. The Financial Times reports that the government has denied it was unprepared for the flooding over the weekend. MailOnline reports on expert comments made to BBC Inside Out South West that 1,200 coastal landfill sites in the UK are at risk of pouring into the sea due to encroaching storm surges and rising sea levels. The Times has a Q&A by environment editor Ben Webster looking at the causes behind the recent storms and flooding, and considering the role climate change played.

The Independent reports on the “bleak irony” of the first-ever UK Student Climate Network national conference being cancelled due to flooding brought on by Storm Dennis. Bloomberg also covers the same story. Meanwhile, BBC News reports that climate activists from Extinction Rebellion have dug up a lawn outside Trinity College Cambridge University college over its role in the “”destruction of nature” at a major development in Suffolk.

Finally, Climate Home News announces that it is launching a new frontline climate justice reporting programme reporting on how communities, primarily women, youth and indigenous peoples in developing nations, are being impacted by climate change.

In an “exclusive” story, the Australian reports that prime minister Scott Morrison is expected to adopt a technology target “to avoid Australia signing up to an internationally imposed requirement for net zero emissions by 2050”. The paper says the move comes after a major business lobby group announced at least AU$22bn of technology investment annually and a doubling of renewable energy generation capacity would be necessary for such a target. It notes the hypothetical new ­climate change plan will be presented at this year’s COP26 summit. The Guardian notes the prime minister told reporters such reports were “very speculative”, while noting that in his view emissions reductions are achieved through technology, not “meetings”. New polling, also reported by the Guardian, shows an increase in concern about the environment in Australia and a drop in support for new coal mines, even among those who vote for the ruling Coalition government. The South China Morning Post has a comment piece by trade-policy expert David Dodwell about Australia’s “schizophrenia” when it comes to climate change and coal: “It might take severe shocks to the economy to force that change, but maybe the bush fires could count as such a shock.”

Reuters reports that investors managing $37tn worth of assets have told Japan it should strengthen its climate targets, as a strong signal from Tokyo could help galvanise international action ahead of COP26. Meanwhile, the Financial Times has a piece looking at the UK’s shaky start organising this year’s COP26, noting that “stakes are high for post-Brexit Britain anxious to show it can be a big hitter outside EU”. BBC News reports the cost of policing the conference in Glasgow has now been estimated at £250m.

Flooding dominates the editorial pages of many UK newspapers today, including the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Independent and the Daily Mirror, with many expressing anger that Boris Johnson has not yet visited flood victims. A Guardian editorial makes it clear that, with the UK once again facing deadly flooding due to storms, a critical part of the government’s response must be tackling climate change while at the same time promoting adaptation measures such as new planning laws. “Are sufficient measures being taken to reduce, as far as possible, the risk of future floods, and to mitigate the damage to people and property that they cause? The simple answer is no,” it says, pointing to the lack of planning around the government’s net-zero emissions target.

The lead op-ed in the Daily Mail, by climate sceptic Ross Clark, says ministers are preaching about a “climate emergency” at the expense of improved flood defences. “The belief that we’ve suffered some kind of unprecedented deluge caused by global warming simply isn’t true…It does, however, beg a question: if climate change is making the country more vulnerable now and in the future, as government bodies keep telling us, why aren’t they taking flood defence more seriously?” An editorial in the Times takes a more even-handed tone when discussing the floods: “Some will blame freak acts of nature for the misery; others will focus on global warming. Whatever the explanation, homeowners have the right to demand that the government of an island nation crisscrossed with rivers exercises more effectively its duty to manage flood defences”. Simon Jenkins in the Guardian agrees that floods for the most part are “preventable by upland river management and lowland common sense”.

A “big read” in the Financial Times asks if insurance companies will “pick up the bill” for climate change both in the UK and around the world. It says the sheer numbers of properties at risk from storm surges linked to climate change, combined with the lack of cover, should be an attractive target for the industry. However: “Insurance systems and government programmes have developed haphazardly, and are ill-suited to deal with the growing risks. This is prompting a rethink over which risks should be held publicly, and which privately.”

A comment piece in the Times by Hugo Rifkind looks at the chequered history of some Conservative politicians on climate change and energy issues, in the context of their recent enthusiasm for climate action. He points to past attitudes towards wind turbines and fossil fuel extraction by newly appointed ministers like George Eustice and Rishi Sunak, and says even prime minister Boris Johnson has a history of “openly crankish climate change scepticism”: “Are we supposed to believe that they have changed their minds? That they deeply regret everything they thought and said until five minutes ago?…I struggle to believe that this government has the stomach or conviction for the fights ahead with the car makers, with motorists, with energy companies, with consumers, with manufacturers, with everybody. ”

Reflecting on the recent “citizens’ assembly” on climate change held in Birmingham last weekend, a piece in the Guardian by Stephen Buranyi considers what impact – if any – this opportunity to discuss climate policy will have on the government: “For a long time it has been assumed that public opinion is a barrier to climate action. But the climate assembly will likely confirm what the polls have been indicating for the past year: that people are now ready to move further and faster on climate action than the minimal effort shown by the government.”

A new special series comprising six comment pieces and a research paper in Nature Energy considers the potential for extreme weather events to disrupt energy systems. One comment piece considers how energy models incorporate such extremes, noting that “the future is affected as much by out-of-ordinary extremes as by generally expected trends”. Other articles in the series look at the impact of extreme weather on energy finance and seasonal forecasts for the renewable energy industry, as well as presenting legal liabilities to the energy sector. Further pieces explore issues with incorporating climate risks in companies’ planning and public disclosures, and also into climate-economy and energy systems models.

Earlier “leaf-out” – when plants produce their leaves in spring – in the northern temperate and boreal regions has a knock-on effect of enhancing surface warming, a new study suggests. Using a climate model, the researchers show that a 12-day earlier leaf-out – which is “consistent with recent observations” – enhances “annual surface warming in the northern hemisphere”. The study identifies “warming hotspots in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (~0.7C), east and west edges of Siberia (~0.4C) and southeastern Tibetan Plateau (~0.3C)”. With continued warming, “positive feedbacks between climate and leaf phenology are likely to amplify warming in the northern high latitudes”, the study concludes.

A new review paper considers how societies will negotiate transboundary freshwater resources that are likely to prove more challenging to manage in a warming climate. This “review of research on conflict and cooperation over transboundary freshwater resources shows that, thus far, the prevailing response is cooperation, albeit non-violent conflict is quite frequent, too”, the authors write. They add: “Key knowledge gaps remain, particularly with respect to transboundary water conflict and cooperation in the past 10 to 15 years and in terms of local water-related events.”

New research investigates how rising temperatures could affect the biodiversity of intertidal food webs. Using observations taken from 124 marine rock-pool food webs sampled across four continents, the researchers undertake “dynamic modelling” to “test whether communities from warmer regions are more sensitive to warming”. The findings indicate “that an expected anthropogenic global warming of 4 °C should increase biodiversity in arctic to temperate regions while biodiversity in tropical regions should decrease”.