The surge in demand for electric cars means they will account for 18% of global car sales in 2023, compared with just 4%  in 2020, according to the Financial Times coverage of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new electric vehicle outlook. The newspaper notes that, in 2022, sales already passed the 10m mark for the first time globally and this year that number is projected to rise to 14m vehicles, including both battery-only models and hybrids that plug in to charge. The article points to new policies in the EU and the US to drive the decarbonisation of road transport, stating that “tightening rules have prompted every major carmaker to invest heavily in zero-emission vehicles”. CNBC says that the IEA described China as being “the frontrunner” in electric car sales, with over 50% of electric cars on the road now found in the world’s second-largest economy. Reuters reports that, according to the IEA, the shift from combustion engines to electric cars will reduce global demand for oil by at least 5m barrels a day.

Separately, the Daily Telegraph reports that UK government plans to boost electric vehicle numbers will result in more people opting to use their cars for journeys, due to the low costs of running electric models. As a result, it says congestion on the road will increase. The newspaper says these findings come from a cost-benefit analysis of the government’s plans to reduce the share of non-electric cars sold through its new zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate. In more negatively framed electric-car news, the Daily Telegraph also reports that the rollout of public charge points “has gone into reverse, as figures show there was one standard public charger for every 36 electric cars on the road, down from 31 in 2021”.

Meanwhile, John Neil, who runs parts and logistics giant Unipart, tells BBC News he is considering moving the company from the UK to the US or the EU to take advantage of subsidies offered to electric-car firms. The Financial Times reports that a plan by General Motors and Samsung SDI to spend $3bn on a new US battery plant “makes clear South Korean companies’ dominance” of the North American electric-car battery supply chain, beating rivals from China.

Finally, in more transport news, Reuters reports that negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states have agreed a deal to set binding targets for airlines in Europe to increase their use of sustainable aviation fuels.

The UK’s largest bioenergy supplier, Drax, has been told by its own scientific advisers to stop calling biomass “carbon neutral”, according to Sky News. The news outlet says this raises “difficult questions” about the future of “the controversial energy form” when its subsidies expire in 2027. The UK classifies bioenergy as renewable, meaning it qualifies for subsidies, but the status is contested by some who argue that burning wood pellets results in environmental damage and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions being released. According to Sky, Drax has now been told by its independent advisory board to “reassess its criteria for determining carbon neutrality”, and “move away from saying ‘carbon stocks are increasing/stable’ and stating biomass is carbon neutral”. The Financial Times reports that the UK’s energy regulator Ofgem has “commissioned a probe into power company Drax’s compliance with sustainability rules, after growing external scrutiny of the wood it burns to generate electricity”. The newspaper says documents obtained under a freedom of information (FOI) request show Ofgem began looking last year “into whether the energy company had complied with the UK’s biomass sustainability rules, a move that followed a BBC documentary which raised questions about whether wood it had procured from Canada was sustainably sourced”.

Meanwhile, Drax has announced the closure of its last coal-fired units at its Yorkshire power plant, “bringing to an end almost 50 years of coal power generation”, according to BusinessGreen. The news website says the move marks the latest step in Drax’s plans to install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to capture emissions from its biomass units “and ultimately deliver ‘negative emissions’”. While it was once western Europe’s largest coal-fired power station, Drax now has four units that have been converted to use biomass, according to Energy Live News. The power plant had previously agreed with National Grid to keep its two remaining coal-fired units available to provide a contingency service between October 2022 and March 2023, Reuters reports.

West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has threatened to support a repeal of president Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Hill reports. As the outlet notes, this is in spite of the fact that Manchin, a Democrat, “largely crafted” the bill last summer. “Manchin thought he had a deal with the Biden administration to allow more investment in fossil fuel production over the next decade, but he doesn’t think the president is holding up his end of the bargain,” the article explains. However, the article notes that there is “no chance of a repeal bill passing Congress before 2025” due to Democrat control of the White House and Senate. It also notes that there is a strong chance Manchin will lose his seat to a Republican in the next election. According to Mother Jones, Manchin made the comments in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, where he also said that the US can “do” fossil fuels “better and cleaner than anywhere in the world”. Meanwhile, the Independent reports on “the real reason Tucker Carlson should have been fired”, quoting Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman and others taking aim at the recently dismissed Fox News host’s climate sceptic beliefs. Bloomberg has a feature explaining that despite opposition from the US right, it is in fact Republican-controlled states that stand to gain the most investment from Biden’s package of subsidies. Meanwhile, Inside Climate News considers whether, in running for a second term as US president, Biden can “repair his damaged climate and environmental justice image”. 

According to the National, the UK’s “net-zero tsar” Chris Skidmore has called on the UK and US to forge a new “green special relationship” to tackle climate change together. The article says he rejected criticism from those in the UK of the IRA, stating that it offered a “catalytic opportunity globally”.

Separately, Axios reports that House Oversight and Accountability Committee chairman James Comer has indicated he is “prepared to subpoena special climate envoy John Kerry’s office, if it doesn’t cough up documents he’s seeking”. The article describes this as “an escalation of [Republican] efforts to learn more about the work of Kerry”, who occupies “a powerful position within the Biden administration as a climate super-diplomat”. 

Shell has withdrawn from the Northern Endurance Partnership, one of the UK’s largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects and part of the nation’s plans to decarbonise its industrial clusters, Reuters reports. The BP-led project could account for at least half of the 20-30m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) the country aims to capture annually by 2030, the news wire reports. It says the move comes after Shell chief executive Wael Sawan carried out a review of several of the group’s emerging low-carbon businesses, adding that the oil major intends to focus on the Acorn CCS project in Scotland instead, where it is the technical developer. According to City AM, the move comes “just days after the National Grid walked away from the venture”, leaving fellow oil companies BP, Equinor and TotalEnergies on board. The Financial Times has a feature on British industry’s “push to make carbon capture a reality”. It says companies involved, such as BP, are calling for “fast-track approval for projects and clarity on government policy”.

Meanwhile, an “exclusive” interview with US climate envoy John Kerry in the Guardian quotes him saying that relying on technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is “dangerous” and a cause for “alarm”. Specifically, Kerry highlights the risk of “overshooting” warming targets and then attempting to bring temperatures back down by removing CO2, as he says there is a risk of the world passing climate “tipping points”. (See Carbon Brief’s series on tipping points for more information.) An explainer piece by the Guardian’s environment correspondent Fiona Harvey describes CO2 removal as “the tech that is polarising climate science”.

BusinessGreen reports that Greenpeace has launched a fresh legal challenge to stop new UK fossil-fuel exploration, arguing that ministers “broke the law when they failed to properly assess the climate impact of launching the country’s first new oil-and-gas licensing round in three years”. City AM quotes energy security and net-zero secretary Grant Shapps, who told the House of Lords’ Environment and Climate Change Committee that the UK oil-and-gas sector still has “a very important part to play” in the UK’s energy security goals, including net-zero.

Finally, the Times reports that energy experts at the Regulatory Assistance Project have estimated that UK households face increases of more than £100 a year in their gas bills if the government goes ahead with plans to blend hydrogen into gas supplies.

Energy security and net-zero secretary Grant Shapps writes for the Daily Telegraph about the UK government’s “mission on energy”. He says he has set his sights on ensuring the nation has “amongst the cheapest electricity in Europe by 2035”, with lower bills coming by the summer. He uses the opportunity to take aim at climate protesters, writing: “What the Just Stop Oil activists and other agitators who threaten to disrupt this country fail to grasp is that this generation-defining switch to cleaner and cheaper energy isn’t something that can happen overnight.” Echoing the language frequently used in the Daily Telegraph and other right-leaning UK newspapers, Shapps derides the “eco-zealots who want to turn off the North Sea supply of oil and gas”, an act that he says would increase energy bills and decrease the nation’s energy security. He adds that activists seem “intent on helping Putin’s use of energy as a weapon of war against the west”. The minister says the energy bill that was introduced in the House of Commons yesterday will help the government achieve its aims and “unleash” new low-carbon power “for when the wind is not blowing, or the sun does not shine”. Specifically, he refers to speeding up the growth of a new carbon capture industry and “a burgeoning hydrogen economy” in the UK.

Pushing back against some of Shapp’s messaging, the UK government’s “net-zero tsar” and former energy minister Chris Skidmore has a piece in the Guardian titled: “I’m a Tory MP, but I can’t let ministers trash our net-zero pledge with the Rosebank oilfield.” He says it is “concerning that, at a time when the UK should be embracing a renewable future,” an application has been submitted by the Norwegian oil company Equinor to open “the UK’s largest undeveloped oilfield” in the North Sea. Skidmore points out analysis showing that “just this single new oilfield would be enough to exceed the UK’s carbon budgets for the oil-and-gas industry”. He also highlights findings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that, to achieve the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5C, no further oil and gas projects can be approved. Finally, he notes that the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) has also “suggested that an end to exploration of oil and gas would strengthen the country’s diplomatic role”. The Guardian has also written up Skidmore’s comments as a news story.

The Guardian has an editorial noting the “drop-off in current demand for electric cars” in the UK, despite a 2030 target to end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles. Factors it points to include relatively high costs, high interest rates and inflation and a lack of sufficient charging infrastructure around the country. “The net result is that while sales of electric vehicles are growing in absolute terms and company fleet sales are strong – partly as a result of specific incentives to employers – the electric share of the new vehicle market is not accelerating as it needs to”, it says. The major societal transformation being planned “should not be attempted on the cheap” and risks leaving people behind without “creative grants and subsidies” and lower-cost car models being produced by manufacturers. “The government’s climate change committee has described the full transition to electric vehicles as one of the key actions in achieving the UK’s net zero targets. Ministers risk failing to ensure that everyone is along for the ride,” the article concludes.

Sunday Times economics editor David Smith writes in the Times about the “malaise in UK manufacturing”. He says: “America’s manufacturers are benefiting from the Biden government’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provides big incentives and subsidies for firms to pursue green innovations and technologies, and which some business groups believe should be replicated in this country.”

Heike Mainhardt, senior advisor for Multilateral Bank Campaigns at German NGO Urgewald, has written an article for African Arguments reflecting on recent developments at the World Bank as the institution places more emphasis on addressing climate change. (This comes after the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – IMF – held their annual spring meetings, which were covered by Carbon Brief.) She notes that amid mounting pressure for reform, the World Bank has released an “evolution roadmap” and its president David Malpass, accused of being a “climate denier”, has stepped down. “These shifts have raised hopes that the international financial institution is undergoing significant soul-searching and that it will soon re-emerge, finally primed and ready to drive action on climate change,” Mainhardt writes. However, in the article she explains the various ways in which the bank continues to “pump billions” into the fossil fuel industry, including some funds that are officially marked as “climate finance”.

Meanwhile, Hillary Essien, senior associate editor at Nigerian outlet the Republic, explores climate finance and particularly the loss-and-damage fund agreed at last year’s COP27 climate summit, in a wide-ranging article about climate change and Africa. “Crucially, the urgency of the climate crisis and the loss and damage fund should not be ignored. The disruption of economies and economic activity, water and food systems, and public health could culminate in multiple humanitarian crises across Africa,” she writes.

Decreases in fish production due to climate change could potentially lead to more piracy in East Africa, a new study suggests. The research “tests the possibility” that changes to sea temperatures could drive down fish production in some regions, potentially creating a larger risk of people taking part in maritime piracy. The authors conclude: “We treat sea surface temperature as an instrument for fish output and find that in East Africa higher sea surface temperature is associated with declining fish production, which in turn increases the risk of piracy, whereas in the South China Sea higher sea surface temperature is associated with increasing fish production, which in turn decreases the risk of piracy.”