The former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has said he will pay $4.5m (£3.2m) to cover this year’s lapsed US commitment to the Paris climate agreement. The US president Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing the US from the deal last year, saying it was a “terrible deal” which would “undermine” the economy and put the US at a “permanent disadvantage”, the Independent reports. Bloomberg, whose net worth is approximately $50bn, made the pledge on Earth Day, to the network CBS. In his announcement to the channel, quoted by the BBC, he said: “America made a commitment and, as an American, if the government’s not going to do it then we all have a responsibility…I’m able to do it. So, yes, I’m going to send them a cheque for the monies that America had promised to the organisation as though they got it from the federal government.” He did not commit to provide funds beyond 2018 and said he hoped that by next year Trump would have changed his mind. The president, he said, should be able to: “listen to others and change his mind. A person that doesn’t change their mind isn’t very smart … And he’s been known to change his mind”. The Hill, the New York Post and Reuters also cover the story.

A “definitive” study of global bird populations has found that one in eight bird species is threatened with global extinction, with once-common species such as puffins and snowy owls now at risk, the Guardian reports. The research reveals that the biodiversity crisis is driven by human activity: after farming, logging is a key factor in declines of 50% of the most globally endangered species, followed by invasive species (39%), hunting and trapping (35%), climate change (33%) and residential and commercial development (28%). The decline of the snowy owl is linked to climate change, with snowmelt in the Arctic affecting the availability of prey, while climate change also affects seabird species like the Atlantic puffin and the black-legged kittiwake. Tris Allinson, senior global science officer for BirdLife International, told the Guardian: “The species at risk of extinction were once on mountaintops or remote islands, such as the pink pigeon in Mauritius. Now we’re seeing once widespread and familiar species – European turtle doves, Atlantic puffins and kittiwakes – under threat of global extinction.”

Britain cannot rely on gas imports from Europe to help keep the lights on during extremely cold weather, according to research compiled by Imperial College London for the Electric Insights report series published by Drax. During the cold snap at the start of March – dubbed the “Beast from the East” – Britain’s interconnector with France exported power to the continent on two of the coldest days, the research shows. The report released today underlines the “vulnerability of the country’s energy supplies to market volatility”, the Financial Times writes. Andy Koss, chief executive of Drax Power, told the paper: “While the European interconnector is an important part of Great Britain’s electricity infrastructure, it responds solely to price…Therefore, if Europe has a cold snap, the country is at the end of the line, leaving consumers vulnerable to security of supply and higher prices.” In a separate piece, the Financial Times reports that Macquarie is considering putting three large UK gas-fired power plants up for sale. “As the UK draws more of its energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar…the long-term prospects of large power stations are increasingly uncertain”, the Financial Times writes.

The British bank HSBC become the latest financial institution to move away from financing high carbon energy projects after ruling out funds for new coal-fired power plants, the Telegraph reports. HSBC set out its shift in energy policy ahead of its annual general meeting in London. “We recognise the need to reduce emissions rapidly to achieve the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rises to well below 2 degrees Celsius and our responsibility to support the communities in which we operate”, said Daniel Klier, the bank’s sustainability boss.

Scientists have removed sulphur from fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal by using new strains of bacteria, the Hindu reports. These bacteria use an organic sulphur compound found in the fossil fuels as an energy source, thereby getting rid of the sulphur. Sulphur is one of a number of pollutants emitted during the combustion of fossil fuels. The technology “can be potentially explored for the removal of sulphur from fossil fuels on a commercial scale”, the Hindu writes.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is expecting its strongest quarterly results since 2014 this week, the Times reports. Helped by the rebound in oil prices, the company expected to announce “underlying profits of $5.3 billion for the three months up to March, compared with $3.8 billion in the same period last year”. Oil prices fell to less than $30 a barrel two years ago, but have rebounded over the past year and briefly reached $74 a barrel last week.

In a statement released by the White House on Earth Day, US president Donald Trump insisted that a “market-driven economy is essential to protecting” the environment, while renewing his vow to undo “unnecessary and harmful regulations”, the Hill reports. From the beginning of his presidency Trump has sought to undo federal environmental regulations that he has deemed harmful to US economic growth.

As part of a series on “possible solutions to some of the world’s most stubborn problems”, Guardian journalist Oliver Milman has travelled to Utqiaġvik, Alaska, to investigate a pilot project at a lake that hopes to prevent runaway climate change with geoengineering. The feature explains how: “tiny spheres of reflective sand will be sprinkled upon the lake to see if this can prevent the lake ice from melting or slow the process down”. If successful, the project hopes to repeat the process on 19,000 sq miles of sea ice, in order to stem the loss of ice cover. But some worry about the potential consequences of such ventures, such as unintended pollution, as well as “the even more hazardous prospect of handing countries a reason to slow down their emissions cuts in favour of a geoengineering panacea that may never arrive”, Milman writes.

The Mail on Sunday has been forced to publish a statement admitting that two news stories published last year were inaccurate and misleading, in breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice. Bob Ward, who is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, explains that the stories by David Rose repeated false claims about a study showing that the so-called ‘hiatus’ in global warming never occurred. The newspaper incorrectly stated that the study was based on “faulty data” and had “duped world leaders”. “This episode exposes the disregard for accuracy that is frequently shown by ‘The Mail on Sunday’ and Mr Rose when covering climate change and other issues”, Ward argues

Once a “pinnacle of the country’s industrial ambitions” the French energy group EDF has become a “become a symbol of technical weakness and French decline”, writes Nick Butler in the Financial Times. Yet he thinks that: “for all its problems the company could be reborn as a successful player in the new energy economy”. Dividing the company in two and pulling back from further investment in new nuclear is “good for the company”, he writes. “France, like the UK, is beginning to accept that it cannot rely on new nuclear to fulfil its energy needs over the next 20 years and beyond”.

Cutting methane emissions as soon as possible could “significantly increase the feasibility of stabilising global warming below 1.5 C”, new research shows. Using climate models, the researchers find that reducing methane emissions could help the world to achieve the climate targets through “increasing the allowable carbon emissions”. Cutting methane could also have co-benefits for human health and wildfire, the researchers add.

The Silk Road, a centuries-old trade route linking Asia to the Middle East and southern Europe, is likely to see an increase in both temperature and rainfall extremes as the climate warms, a new study finds. Using climate models, the researchers investigated how temperature and rainfall could change over the course of the road, which still supports large numbers of people. The results show a significant increase in warm events over Moscow and Nairobi, while cold events could decrease over central Europe, Moscow and central Asia. Flooding events could be exacerbated across parts of the road under a future warmer world, particularly over Moscow, Southeast Asia and Nairobi, the results show.