UK consumers are likely to foot an “expensive” bill for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, according to a new report from the parliament’s public accounts committee. The report argues the financial case for Hinkley Point C has weakened since it was first announced several years ago, in part due to the declining costs of renewable such as wind and solar, but the government failed to revisit terms of the 35 year contract with developers EDF before the project was given the final go-ahead. The group of MPs has accused the government of failing to protect consumers over the price it has promised to pay for power for Hinkley, reports the Guardian. The committee also said the subsidy contract would hit poorest households hardest. The power station is expected to cost billpayers £30bn over the lengthy of the 35-year contract, adding £10-£15 to the average household energy bill. The committee said the government should publish its strategic case for supporting more nuclear plants before agreeing any more deals, reports Reuters. The report was also covered by the Times, the Financial Times, and the Daily Mail. Carbon Brief published a details Q&A on Hinkley Point C last July.

The Chancellor should use the Autumn Budget today to strengthen carbon pricing and extend subsidies for renewable energy, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change has said. The institute warns the freeze on the carbon price support rate at £18 per tonne is inconsistent with achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, and says the government should introduce a uniform carbon price across the economy. The recommendation was also made by Professor Dieter Helm in his review of energy costs, covered by Carbon Brieflast month. Meanwhile, British Gas has said it would be a fairer option to shift the cost funding a switch to green energy and supporting poor families, reports the Daily Mail. Bloomberg reports three things to look out for in the Autumn budget, including changes to North Sea oil and gas tax system, more details on the shale wealth fund, and decisions on air pollution taxes.

TransCanada Corporations’s permit to operate the Keystone crude oil pipeline in South Dakota could be revoked if an initial probe into a spill last week finds the company violated its license, state regulators said on Tuesday. The pipeline, which will link Alberta’s oil sands with US refineries, spilled 5,000 barrels in rural northeastern South Dakota, just days before its approval from neighbouring Nebraska. New Scientist also covers the debate. The Financial Times reports the Keystone pipeline could also face another obstacle in the form of endangered fish: the route insisted on by Nebraska’s Public Service Commission on Monday raises the risk to the pallid sturgeon, a rare bottom-feeding fish found in US rivers, according to an expert called by Transcanada to give evidence to the commission. Several shareholders told Reuters that TransCanada Corp should push ahead with an $8bn pipeline expansion despite the higher cost of the project due to the change in route.

Climate change contributed to the wave of German immigration to the US that included US president Donald Trump’s grandfather, according to a new study. The study, led by Professor Rüdiger Glaser, a physical geographer at the University of Freiburg in Germany, found changes in Europe’s climate were responsible for up to 30% of emigration from south-west Germany to North America during the 19th century. More than five million Germans migrated to North America during this time, including Friedrich Trump, Donald Trump’s grandfather, who arrived in New York in 1885 as an unskilled 16-year-old who couldn’t speak English. It also notes that a recent report from Oxfam found more than 20 million people a year have been displaced by extreme weather events since 2008, mostly in developing countries. The study’s window of time, from 1812 to 1887, was a transitional period in climate history following the so-called Little Ice Age, when global temperatures were much cooler than today, notes the Washington Post. The Mail Online also covers the research.

Ending the Keystone XL project would send a powerful message to the markets, but “would not cure our over-reliance on oil”, notes an editorial in the Los Angeles Times. “It’s frustrating that in granting permission, the commissioners said they recognised the environmental risks, but found them worth taking in light of the tax revenues the pipeline could generate for the state and local governments. That’s penny-wise, pound-foolish reasoning. We need to move away from pipelines and oil, pit mines and coal (and eventually natural gas) if we are to keep this planet liveable for us all — even Nebraska Public Service commissioners.”

While no important decisions were made on climate finance at the recent UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, “the question of who pays for global climate gave rise to heated debates”, writes Johannes Urpelainen, professor of energy, resources and environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “But while U.S. noncooperation shouldn’t deter other countries from pledging climate action, my recent research with Thijs Van de Graaf shows that it threatens industrialised countries’ promises of climate finance for mitigation and adaptation in poorer countries.”

Perhaps the biggest threat is also one of the most insidious effects of the carbon we pump into the atmosphere, writes Lars Bevanger in DW: ocean acidification. “As with the effects of manmade global warming, changes to ocean chemistry are happening faster than other species can keep pace with.” Research shows the current rate of acidification is more than 10 times faster than at any time in the past 55 million years, he writes. “That means many species will have no chance of adapting to their new environment through evolution.”

2008 is “a bygone age”, writes Alistair Osborne, chief business commentator at the Times in a comment piece looking at the public accounts committee’s new report on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant. “Look what’s happened since: the financial crisis, three changes of government, Brexit. […] Quite a bit, then. So here’s a sentence to make you think: ‘The government last formally considered its strategic case for nuclear in 2008.’ ” Osborne notes that, as the report points out, in 2008 the government put the cost of electricity from new nuclear at £48 per megawatt hour (MWh), while by the time David Cameron approved it the going rate was a guaranteed, index-linked £92.50/MWh – at 2012 prices. “Today, they are about £45/MWh,” he says, while the cost of rival technologies has “plummeted”. “We are now all getting nuked by Hinkley Point,” he adds.

The influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon on the land-based carbon cycle will be enhanced by human-caused warming, a new study suggests. During an El Niño event, warm and dry conditions in tropical land regions suppress plant growth, reducing how much CO2 the land surface takes up. The opposite happens during a La Niña event. The new study finds that the sensitivity of this carbon flux to ENSO will be enhanced by 44% as the climate warms. This happens in part because drier soils in a warmer climate will be more responsive to fluctuations in temperature, the researchers say.