Regulators are about to drop a contentious accusation that UK’s six biggest energy suppliers have overcharged customers by £1.7bn a year, the Financial Times reports. The Competition and Markets Authority will publish its final recommendations on Friday, following a two year investigation, with experts saying that it will opt against dismantling the big six. British Gas, SSE, Npower, Scottish Power, Eon and EDF Energy control about 85% of the residential energy market, down from 99% in 2012. Ben Jones, managing director of Extra Energy, the UK’s fastest-growing energy company, told the Times that he believes the big six’s power is waning, as they have higher fixed costs compared with internet-based rivals. The Times also has the story.

May was the 13th month in a row to break temperature records, according to figures published last week, the Guardian reports. It’s the latest in a string of climate records this year, from vanishing Arctic sea ice, to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to drought in India and the mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. The high temperatures recorded so far this year mean 2016 is all but certain to be the hottest year on record. Adam Scaife of the Met Office told the Guardian: “Including this year so far, 16 of the 17 warmest years on record have been since 2000 – it’s a shocking statistic.” Fast-rising CO2 levels are “almost entirely” the reason for the record-busting year, the Guardian writes, with the climate phenomenon El Nino playing a part. A separate piece in the Guardian looks at the seven climate records set so far this year. The Independent also has the story.

The world heritage site of St Kilda, 40 miles of the west coast of Scotland, is suffering dramatic crashes in seabird numbers linked to climate change, the National Trust for Scotland has found. Numbers of four seabird species there have plunged by between 50% and 90% since 1999. It’s thought that warming seas have caused a sharp fall in the availability of sandeels, one of the birds’ main food sources, while pushing other marine foods deeper into the water or further north, the Guardian reports. A fundraising appeal has been launched to help conserve the birds. The BBC, the Scotsman and the Herald also have the story.

The French electricity giant planning to build an £18bn nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset is locked in a damaging row with its majority shareholder, the French state, the Times writes. Relations have soured after President Hollande promised to close the ageing Fessenheim nuclear power station in Alsace, with the debt-ridden EDF demanding at least €2 billion in compensation. Meanwhile, senior managers at EDF have told MPs in a letter that delay on the Hinkley project is needed until issues including the reactor design are solved, the Guardian reports. Tim Yeo, the former energy select committee chair, told the Guardian that delays with the Hinkley mean that projects such as Bradwell in Essex should be fast-tracked.

Whitehall is planning to hand over responsibility for Britain’s nuclear watchdog to the energy department, sparking fears over its independence, the Times reports. Currently overseen by the Department for Work and Pensions, the Office for Nuclear Regulation is responsible for maintaining nuclear safety and security standards on some of the energy department’s most expensive schemes, such as the Sellafield waste dump, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and new reactors.

By looking at the fraction of the ice floes in May topped with melt ponds, scientists at Reading University have predicted that Arctic sea-ice extent is unlikely to see a new record this summer. Ponding water accelerates melting by changing the reflectivity, or albedo, of white ice, with the darker liquid absorbing more energy from the sun, creating a feedback process. This feedback process has not become a dominant factor in the right places and at the right time to really suppress sea ice in the coming weeks, the scientists say.

When the Competition and Markets Authority concludes its landmark investigation into the energy sector this week, “it’s a fair bet it won’t dominate the news agenda the same way its launch did two years ago”, writes Emily Gosden in the Telegraph. Aside from the fact that it will be published on the morning of the EU referendum result, a lot has changed in the last two years. With energy prices having fallen “the eye of the political storm has moved on”. But if the inquiry doesn’t restore trust, the sector will soon find itself the focus of renewed political attention, Gosden warns.

Global publicity about the deteriorating state of the Great Barrier Reef, is as great a concern to some tourism operators as the bleaching itself. Joshua Robertson explores how perceptions of the reef are affecting tourism, and whether the operators are “worrying unnecessarily”.

A warmer and wetter future climate will see a decline in snowfall between November and April in the Northeastern and Upper Midwest US, a new study suggests. Researchers assessed future snow cover using the simulations from ten climate models in a hydrological model. Decreases in future (2041-2095) snow cover in early spring will affect the timing of spring peak river flows caused by snowmelt, the study finds, with earlier peaks projected in more than 80% of the 124 river basins studied.