Data centres, population growth, rising incomes and electric vehicles are all playing a role in “surging” demand for electricity, according to a new energy outlook report from BNEF covered by Bloomberg. The report shows that, in an “economic transition scenario” – where “green” policies exist, but are not prioritised by governments – solar will become the largest contributor in 2032 and wind the second largest in 2034, both displacing coal, it says. However, Bloomberg continues, “the planet [is] projected to heat up 2.4C by 2050” under this scenario, with emissions from two of the three biggest polluters – India, south-east Asia and Latin America – “continuing to rise”. Bloomberg says the BNEF report states that “successive energy market shocks could be a boon for the energy transition, as some countries look to decouple from imported fossil fuels and bolster their energy security”. The Financial Times also covers the report, explaining that solar is expected to supply 21% of global electricity by 2032 and reach 30% by 2047. Semafor and BusinessGreen also cover the findings.

MORE ON ENERGY TRANSITION:

• Euractiv: “Record demand for electric cars worldwide, Europe growing fastest.”

• Shell CEO Wael Sawan has said that the current energy shock shows that oil is “essential for decades to come”, as a shareholder vote defeated a resolution by climate activists, reports the Times.
• Axios reports that US corporations are “on track” to buy more clean energy this year than “ever before”.
• One of the world’s “largest energy storage plants” has launched in South Dakota, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, the US’s largest wind project is on track to come online next month, says Bloomberg.
• The New York Times covers plans being drawn up in the US to require owners of electric cars to pay $130 to cover the cost of road repairs – a fee that experts have warned is “substantially higher” than average fuel prices paid by fossil-fuel car drivers and could “depress sales”.

There is widespread UK media coverage of a report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) which examines how the UK can adapt to climate change. BBC News says the government’s climate advisors recommend that the “UK should introduce a maximum temperature for workplaces to protect people as heatwaves intensify due to climate change”. Sky News says the CCC has warned that “air conditioning will soon be ‘unavoidable’ to protect many Britons from unbearable summer heat”. The report, it says, identified more frequent heatwaves as the “single greatest climate threat to public health” and has “called for maximum temperature regulations at work, cooling in hospitals and care homes by 2035 and in schools by 2050”. In its coverage of the report recommendations, the Guardian explains that air conditioning will need to be installed in “all care homes and hospitals within the next 10 years, and in all schools within 25 years”. Reuters says the UK will need to invest £11bn annually to make homes and public buildings “more resilient to the escalating threats of drought, flooding and extreme heat waves, according to the report. For more, read Carbon Brief‘s in-depth summary of the CCC’s recommendations. (Plus, see Comment below.)

MORE ON UK

• Financial Times: “Power from Sizewell C will be more expensive than Hinkley Point, says UK watchdog.”
• Reform UK’s climate-sceptic spokesperson Richard Tice has said the hard-right party could use “judicial reviews to delay new [electricity] transmission projects”, reports Bloomberg. (See Comment below for Bloomberg’s separate in-depth interview with Tice where he makes a wide range of false and misleading claims about climate change and net-zero policies.)
• The average price of unleaded petrol has risen to 158.52p a litre, its highest level since the start of the Iran war, according to motoring body RAC, said BBC News.
• Sky News says that the UK government has “watered down” sanctions on Russia amid the jet fuel crisis, allowing diesel and jet fuel from Russian crude oil to enter the UK, if it is refined in other countries.
• There is continuing coverage in the Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, Reuters and Bloomberg of a Cornwall Insight forecast that UK energy bills rising by £209 a year from July.
• Daily Telegraph: “UK electric car market growing faster than China”.

“Multiple sources” have reportedly told the Guardian that Australia’s national science agency – CSIRO – is gearing up to “sack” a third of the team working on the national climate model that provides future climate projections relied on by governments, councils, industry and farmers. The newspaper reports that senior scientists said it would result in Australia “no longer having an international-standard climate model” that would contribute projections to the UN climate-science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Guardian adds that CSIRO management is expected to confirm it is making 100 scientists redundant at a staff meeting tomorrow. “About five” of the 15 CSIRO scientists who work on the model known as the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator have been told they will lose their job, it reports.

Meanwhile, there is continuing coverage of inaccurate claims made by US president Donald Trump on social media last week that the IPCC has “admitted” the very-high emissions “RCP8.5” climate scenario was “wrong”. Carbon Brief has factchecked the president’s false assertions, in an article that unpacks Trump’s comments, the debate around RCP8.5 and the “good” and “bad” news within the latest scenarios. Bloomberg explains: “Scientists, not the UN, are retiring RCP8.5 from use in future climate research; over the past decade it was a mainstay in landmark UN climate reports. But the end of the RCP8.5 era is the result not of errors, according to scientists, but of recent research on emissions pathways that have made the old worst-case scenario irrelevant.” The Associated Press notes that both the “worst” and “best” case scenarios previously used in modelling have been deemed “no longer plausible by scientists”. The Washington Post, Daily Express, Euronews and CNN also cover the story.

MORE ON SCIENCE

• CNN asks what previous “super El Niño” events can tell us about the coming weather event.
• Scientific American: “The US just experienced its hottest 12 months on record”.

“Widespread flooding” triggered by torrential rain across southern and central China on Tuesday has killed at least 21 people, according to Chinese authorities, reports Reuters. The newswire adds that eight provinces have been warned of a “high risk” of “landslides, flash floods and severe urban flooding and waterlogging”. Another Reuters report says that Hubei province has experienced “record-breaking rainfall”, with 337 townships seeing “over 40% of Hubei’s average annual precipitation” from last Saturday afternoon to Monday. State broadcaster CGTN reports that southwestern China’s Chongqing has also seen heavy rain recently. State news agency Xinhua reports rainfall during this year’s “wheat maturation and harvest period” in Henan, China’s wheat production hub, will be above normal. [The articles do not mention climate change in their reporting.] China is focusing on building its resilience to “growing health risks linked to climate change, Shen Hongbing, vice minister of the National Health Commission and head of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, tells the state-run newspaper China Daily.

MORE ON CHINA

• Vladimir Putin is looking to advance talks on the planned Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project with Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing, reports Bloomberg. A Xinhua “commentary” says energy is a “cornerstone of China-Russia ties”.
• China’s electricity consumption in April rose 6% year-on-year, reports CEPN. China’s wind power generation fell 5% while solar rose 7.1% year-on-year, says International Energy Net.
• Chinese vice premier Ding Xuexiang has called for “strengthening the green foundation” of China’s computing infrastructure, reports People’s Daily.
• China plans to build the world’s largest plant for converting “coal to ethylene glycol”, a “key chemical”, reports Nikkei Asia.
• Environmental inspectors have criticised officials in Heilongjiang province for “destruction” of wetlands and “unauthorised encroachment” into protected areas, reports Xinhua.
• Global Times says that, for India, importing Chinese clean technology will reduce the cost of new-energy projects and accelerate its energy transition.

India’s peak power demand “smashed all records” to reach 260.5 gigawatts (GW) on Tuesday afternoon, as heatwave conditions…”continued across large parts of the country, driving a sharp rise in electricity consumption”, reports the Economic Times. The latest peak beat Monday’s all-time high of 257.37GW, adds the outlet, with “growing evening demand bringing renewed focus on the need for storage systems and flexible generation capacity”. Coal-based power accounted for 69% of generation to meet Monday’s peak, followed by 28% from renewable energy sources, reports the Hindu Businessline. The “new records” arrive as India’s meteorological authorities forecast “intense to severe heatwave conditions” over large parts of northwest and central India over the next two days, Business Standard writes, with daytime temperatures in New Delhi expected to hit 45C.

As power demand “surged” to record highs, Reuters reports that a solar industry group has asked India’s power-market regulator to increase the ​cap on electricity prices at power exchanges. According to the newswire, the group told India’s Central Electricity Authority that the country’s power producers are “often forced to sell electricity ​at low prices ​during periods ⁠of weak demand, but cannot make up for those losses when demand rises” because of the price cap, “discouraging investment in areas such as energy storage”. Meanwhile, new analysis by energy thinktank Ember covered by Down to Earth estimates that India “lost” 300GWh of renewable power because of “transmission constraints”.

Separately, a CarbonCopy investigation finds that India’s liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) market “is beginning to shed the poorest people in India”, who are now paying “some of the highest rates anywhere in the world” for cooking gas. At the same time, unnamed sources tell Bloomberg that India is considering rolling out more than $1bn in incentives to “spur private-sector adoption of electric buses and trucks, in an attempt to cut fossil-fuel use in the segment amid a deepening energy crisis”. Finally, another Bloomberg story reports that India’s airline operators have asked state-run oil refiners to “hold off on hiking jet fuel prices for domestic flights until the conflict in the Middle East ends”, with India’s oil and gas ministry also included in the discussions. 

MORE ON INDIA

• The India Meteorological Department is considering revising the criteria for declaring heatwaves “amid growing concerns that climate change is making extreme heat events more frequent, intense and prolonged”, reports News18. 
• A Down to Earth comment argues India’s heatwaves are a “gendered disaster”, observing that the “climate catastrophe is no longer an abstract scientific projection”, but is happening “in overcrowded homes, hospital wards, agricultural fields and city streets, where women are paying the hidden cost of rising heat”.
• A Mongabay long-read looks at how heat and climate change are affecting bovine health and the livelihoods of the country’s cattle owners.
• Bloomberg looks at how the central Indian city of Nagpur – “one of the hottest cities in the world – has “some of the costliest power in the country”, making cooling unaffordable for low-income families.

A majority of 215 MPs have voted to reject a Conservative opposition proposal which pressed ministers to approve oil-and-gas drilling at the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea, reports the Press Association. Energy secretary Ed Miliband told MPs the UK remains “deeply vulnerable” while it is exposed to the “fossil-fuel rollercoaster”, according to the newswire. He continued: “Our sovereignty, our security and the British people’s living standards are undermined by this dependence and exposure because – for a simple reason – we do not control the price of oil and gas, which is set on international markets.” Claire Coutinho, shadow energy secretary, described the government’s position on oil and gas as “the single greatest act of industrial self-harm…seen in a generation”, according to the newswire. She also reportedly said that “only a complete whacko” would respond to a supply shortage by “shutting down” a country’s oil and gas industry. [Carbon Brief analysis has shown how the price of gas, which is set on international markets, is the main driver of the UK’s high electricity bills.] Separately, the Daily Telegraph covers calls on Labour from Shell CEO Wael Sawan to “approve” the two fields.

In an “analysis” reflecting on the latest warnings (see News above) from the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), the Guardian’s environment editor Fiona Harvey writes that “Britons are going to have to get used to living in a hot country”. She continues: “Without strong preventive action, a hotter Britain will also be a far more unequal country.” Harvey quotes Cath Smith from the Green Alliance thinktank, who says: “Impacts such as heat and flooding intersect with inequalities in income, health, housing and place, leaving some communities facing greater harm with fewer resources to adapt or recover. If policy doesn’t acknowledge the growing and unequal impacts of climate change, then there is a real risk that rising temperatures will exacerbate inequalities.” The climate-sceptic Sun has a different take on the report, noting in an editorial that the CCC’s “latest great wheeze” is to “force mandatory working from home” during heatwaves. It continues: “How letting workers bask in the garden will help to fix Britain’s productivity crisis remains a mystery.”

In other UK comment, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch writes in the climate-sceptic Daily Express that Keir Starmer’s pledge to cut energy bills amounts to “another failed promise” in light of the recent forecast that energy bills are set to rise by more than £200 per year in July. The comment piece – reported on the Daily Express’ frontpage – claims that the Con­ser­vat­ives are work­ing on “serious plans to bring down bills”. The Tory plan, she adds, would cut household bills by an “average of £200, remove VAT on bills and cut busi­ness electricity costs by 20%”. She continues that her party would “axe the car­bon tax to save industry” and “get Bri­tain drilling our own oil and gas in the North Sea”. Badenoch argues that Starmer could “do all this immediately and save everyone money”, but he “doesn’t dare” because he is “now in a battle with energy secretary Ed Miliband for his sur­vival”. [As noted above – and in this Carbon Brief factcheck – it is the price of gas, which is set on electricity markets, that is responsible for the UK’s high electricity prices. Meanwhile, UK energy trade body Energy UK has forecast that scrapping carbon pricing in the UK would increase bills.]

Separately, Bloomberg has an in-depth podcast interview with Reform UK energy spokesperson Richard Tice where he says: “I’m saying very clearly and any investors listening to this, don’t invest in AR7, AR8 [upcoming renewables auctions] and beyond. We put people on notice. Invest in nuclear. Invest in gas. Invest in oil. Don’t invest in renewables.” Amid a slew of false and misleading claims, Tice says he “fundamentally disagreed” with the research presented by the IPCC, but declines to name advisers who convinced him the scientific consensus was wrong. He also threatens to storm out of the interview when presented with evidence challenging his views.

MORE COMMENT

• In the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, business editor Ben Marlow claims chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plan to scrap fuel duty is an “attempt to gaslight the entire nation”.
• In the Times, climate-sceptic columnist Melanie Phillips argues – without evidence – that the BBC presents a raft of issues – including climate change – through a “left-wing prism”, which includes “falsehoods, distortions and selective reporting, as well as a skewed choice of interviewees, a tendentious way of framing questions and the ruthless exclusion of those who see the world in a different way”.
• An editorial in the climate-sceptic New York Post says the retirement of the RCP8.5 scenario means that “lefties” won’t be able to “credibly cite the IPCC to support their case”. [For more on false claims made by Trump and various media outlets about the climate scenario, see Carbon Brief’s factcheck.]
• The Financial Times’ science commentator Anjana Ahuja asks if “geoengineering can avert a climate catastrophe”. 
• In Forbes, energy columnist Anna Demeo says it is “ironic” that the rapid redeployment of AI could result in widespread adoption of distributed solar and batteries for homes and businesses.
• The Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf says that, “if things don’t change soon”, the IEA’s warning that the world is entering the biggest energy crisis in history will “prove correct”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Cecilia Keating, with contributions from Henry Zhang, Aruna Chandrasekhar and Anika Patel. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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