Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has vowed to roll back flagship regulations that tackle climate change and water pollution, telling a conservative audience in Maryland they would be “justified” in believing the environmental regulator should be completely disbanded. The Trump appointee signalled that the president is set to start the work of dismantling climate and water rules as early as this week. Reuters says ” his rise to the head of the EPA has also cheered many Republicans and business interests that expect him to cut back red tape they believe has hampered the economy”. Bloomberg New Energy Finance also covers the story. Meanwhile, the Hill has published “five takeaways from the Pruitt emails”, which refers to thousands of Scott Pruitt’s emails released last week on the orders of an Oklahoma judge. They date from his time as the state’s attorney general and reveal how closely he worked with local fossil fuel companies.

One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather today to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere. “The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week. The drivers include rising human-caused carbon emissions. The Mirror says that “destruction of wildlife areas for farming and logging is the biggest cause of falling animal numbers”. The Independent also covers the story.

The UN’s new climate chief says she’s worried about President Donald Trump – but confident that action to curb climate change is unstoppable. President Trump said he’d withdraw from the UN climate deal and stop funding the UN’s clean energy programme. But former Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa told BBC News that the delay in any firm announcement suggests the issue is still unresolved. She travelled to US this weekend to try and meet the new US secretary of state. Espinosa said it would be more damaging for the US to leave the on-going climate talks process altogether than to stop funding the clean energy programme. Carbon Brief also interviewed Espinosa last week when she was visiting London.

Some plants in the low Arctic of Greenland are emerging sooner than usual while others are delaying their emergence as warmer winters are causing spring to come sooner. These changes are associated with reduced sea ice cover in the Arctic and are causing ‘nature’s clock’ to speed up. Researchers based at the University of California, Davis, studied the emergence dates of certain species of plants over a period of 12 years. They found that warming winters and springs associated with declining sea ice cover created a mixture of plants either emerging much sooner, later or somewhere in between.

ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Darren Woods has signalled his backing for the Paris Agreement and called for a carbon tax to reduce US missions in one of his first major public communications since taking the reins at the oil giant in January from Rex Tillerson, now the US secretary of state. In a blog post on the ExxonMobil website, Woods emphasised the importance of managing the risks of climate change and highlighted his company’s plans to boost natural gas generation, energy efficiency, biofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS) to help drive down its emissions.

Pension scheme Nest (National Employment Savings Trust) has invested £130m in a new climate-aware fund as part of a strategic push by the state-backed workplace pension provider to protect the retirement savings of 4.3m British workers from the threat of environmental change. “We cannot afford to ignore climate change risks and we have committed to being part of the solution,” said Mark Fawcett, chief investment officer at Nest which oversees the retirement savings of 290,000 employers. The Guardian also covers the story.

The New York Times has published a multimedia-rich feature looking at how deforestation in the Amazon has increased as “Cargill and other food giants are pushing deeper into the wilderness”.

An editorial in the Business section of the Observer says that complaints about “green crap” have been a convenient excuse for governments unable or unwilling to intervene and cap suppliers’ prices: “At some point the political narrative and public discourse needs to turn 180 degrees: from blaming renewables for rising energy prices to viewing renewables as our saviour from them.”

In a feature for Politico, Browne looks at the shale gas industry’s struggles to get going in Europe. “The European shale gas revolution largely ended before it began,” he writes. Everywhere except Britain. “Grappling with fast-declining natural gas production in the British North Sea and the impending closure of dirty coal-fired power plants and old nuclear reactors, the Conservative government has remained steadfast in its support for shale gas — so much so that it unveiled a plan last summer to buy off local resistance with tax benefits and funding.” But the industry is facing stiff protest, yet says it will “not be browbeaten by a small group of irresponsible bullies”.

In a feature for the Sunday Telegraph, Ambrose looks at the UK’s “smarter, greener and cheaper” power generation system. It’s a future which includes large energy storage depots spread across the country. “The growing demand for decentralised energy raises questions over the UK’s dogged pursuit of investment in large-scale energy infrastructure. The glaring example is the expensive investment plans for a trio of new nuclear power plants in the UK: EDF’s Hinkley Point C, NuGen’s troubled Moorside project and Sizewell B.”

Butler, who advised the Lords committee report into energy pricing published last week (and covered by Carbon Brief), seeks to defend some of its findings: “The critique by the Lords committee may be dismissed by some as the work of climate deniers. That is not justified. The report does not question the 2050 target but rather the effectiveness of the policies chosen to reach it. Nor does it dispute the need for the government to be involved. A strategic direction is essential but micro management is not. The committee’s recommendations start with a reordering of priorities to establish security of supply as the overriding objective. Within a overall strategy set by government, an independent and professional energy commission would be responsible for delivery — for instance by managing open, transparent auctions to identify the cheapest ways of meeting the objectives of security and emissions reduction. Perhaps most important is the call for a properly funded research centre modelled on the US national laboratories.”

European energy ministers will start negotiations today on a set of legislative proposals that, according to E3G, will “drive the transition to a low-carbon energy system for the next decade”. It says: “Many EU observers will expect the alliance between Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia (known as the Visegrád Group), to try to rein in European ambition on clean energy. But what if this year was the start of something different?” Dufour looks at the top five drivers that could open political space for more ambition from these countries.

Research published today suggests scientists may have more freedom than previously thought to engage in certain forms of climate change advocacy without risking harm to their credibility. The experiment showed that on five out of six occasions when a fictional scientist made advocacy statements to the public on Facebook, their own and their colleagues credibility was left unharmed. The only instance where the credibility of the scientist suffered was after the endorsement of a specific controversial policy – building more nuclear power plants, the study suggests.

A new paper describes the process by which September sea ice in the Arctic can be successfully predicted from observations of sea ice concentration and the timing of melt onset. The study shows the highest forecast skill for melt onset in March to May, driven by the presence of areas of open water, and for sea ice concentration in June to August. The authors studied maps of the region to identify areas that are most important for predicting Arctic summer sea ice.