In an update to its energy policy, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will no longer fund Arctic oil projects and has pledged to cut lending to firms profiting largely from coal. The changes cover the mining, power and oil and gas sectors and are aimed at taking a tougher line on climate change, including not providing “project-specific finance” to new coal-fired power stations, new thermal coal mines, oil sands, Arctic oil projects, “unsustainable” vegetation or peatland clearing. RBS will also no longer lend money to mining companies that generate more than 40% of their revenues from thermal coal or power companies that generate more than 40% of their electricity from coal, says Reuters. The previous threshold for both was 65%. RBS said the climate policy changes were part of its wider strategy to “become a simpler, safer bank”, reports the Telegraph. And the updated green policy could “reduce the chances of its AGM being disrupted by climate protesters”, the Telegraph adds. The announcement follows a similar move from HSBC in April, as well as international groups such as BNP Paribas and ING, notes the Financial Times. The Times and BusinessGreen also have the story. In related news, Investments and Pensions Europe reports that the UK parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has “rowed back on its initial assessment of pension funds’ investment attitudes towards climate change”. Last week, the EAC said six of the UK’s 25 largest pension funds did not formally consider climate change as a strategic risk. However, over the weekend the EAC admitted that assessments of two of the six – Lloyds and HBOS – had been based on incomplete information and would be revised. The groups still considered “less engaged” on climate change includes funds from BP, Aviva and Ford.

China’s carbon emissions are set to rise at their fastest pace in more than seven years during 2018, according to analysis by the Greenpeace website Unearthed. CO2 emissions from coal, cement, oil and gas rose 4% in the first quarter of the year, the analysis shows, and if that pace continues it would make the largest annual increase since 2011. Dr Glen Peters, research director at Cicero, predicted that China’s emissions would see “low positive growth” this year of up to 3%. “If the economy is going to grow at 6, 7 or 8%, then it is pretty hard for emissions to go down,” he said. Earlier this year, Peters and colleagues wrote a Carbon Briefguest post on why China’s CO2 emissions grew – but less than expected – in 2017. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that eight Chinese regions have promised to beef up anti-pollution curbs after Beijing-led probes uncovered thousands of violations.

The Canadian government has agreed to buy the Trans Mountain oil pipeline from owner Kinder Morgan in a deal worth around $3.5bn. The move is an attempt by the government to make progress with a proposed expansion of the pipeline, which runs from the oil sands region of Alberta to a terminal near Vancouver on Canada’s west coast, says the FT. Under the proposal, capacity would increase from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels a day, but it has faced strong opposition from British Columbia, the province where the pipeline ends. Finance Minister Bill Morneau said that buying the existing pipeline and its planned expansion project is the only way to ensure the halted project gets built, Reuters reports, although the government does not intend to be long-term owners of the project. “Our message today is simple: when we are faced with an exceptional situation that puts jobs at risk, that puts our international reputation on the line, our government is prepared to take action,” Morneau told reporters. Justin Trudeau told Bloomberg Television that “there is a very strong business case for this pipeline,” and the government takeover meant “a lot of the legal barriers and a lot of the challenge points actually disappear”. The Washington Post also has the story.

Meat and fish companies may be “putting the implementation of the Paris agreement in jeopardy” by failing to properly report their climate emissions, according to a new index. The “Coller FAIRR Protein Producers Index” has examined the environmental and social commitments of 60 of the world’s largest meat and fish producers, finding that 72% provided little or no evidence to show that they were measuring or reporting their emissions. Many of the names in the index will be unfamiliar, but they make up around one-fifth of the global livestock and aquaculture market and supply more familiar companies such as McDonalds, Walmart, Nestle and Danone. Meanwhile, this month’s “We Need to Talk About…” podcast from the Guardian is on the topic of veganism

A former NASA employee says she was warned off using the term “global warming” on social media and restricted in speaking to the media due to her focus on climate change. Laura Tenenbaum, a science communicator during her 10 years at the agency, said NASA “stopped promoting or emphasising climate science communication”: “People inside the agency are concerned Trump will cut climate science funding. There is a fear and anxiety there and the outcome has been chaos.” Tenenbaum said that around a month after Trump’s inauguration last year an “arduous review process” was put in place over every blog post, Facebook post and tweet. “I was told verbally by media relations it was because with Trump as president, climate change is now a sensitive subject,” she said.

Friends of the Earth plans to file a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell, accusing the oil company of failing to act on climate change, the environmental group announced yesterday. Shell aims to halve its carbon emissions by 2050, but Friends of the Earth informed the company last month it planned to take legal action if Shell did not reduce investment in fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. In response, Shell said in a letter seen by Reuters that the company did not believe that these claims had merit: “Nor do we consider that the courts provide the right forum to advance the global energy transition.” Elsewhere, Reuters also reports that the Brazilian environmental agency has – for the fourth time – rejected French oil company Total’s application for a license to drill in the ecologically sensitive Foz do Amazonas basin.

The decision by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to nationalise the Trans Mountain oil pipeline shows he is no “dreamy progressive”, writes veteran environmentalist Bill McKibben in the Guardian, but rather “one more pathetic employee of the richest, most reckless industry in the planet’s history”. Trudeau is “simply a scared prime minister playing politics”, says McKibben: “He’s worried about the reaction in Alberta if the pipe is not built, and so he has mortgaged his credibility”.

Writing for The Hill, physics professor and climate scientist Anders Levermann argues that “President Trump’s campaign for a trade war and economic isolationism is likely to make the consequences of the warming of our planet worse for his country”. The impacts of “weather extremes that damage regional economies spread through global trade relations”, says Levermann, and new analysis shows the US is likely to be one of the worst affected by these indirect damages. “While the president is right to worry about the trade balance,” notes Levermann, “he is terribly wrong to seek reducing trade with other countries. On the contrary, increasing international trade would help climate-proof the US economy”.

Higher levels of CO2 and nitrogen in the atmosphere could drive soil acidification, a new study finds. Previous research has suggested that increases in CO2 and nitrogen could drive plant growth and thus carbon storage. However, the new paper finds that increased levels of the greenhouse gases could drive a cascade reaction in the soil, leading to increased acidification and decreased productivity.