The discovery of two significant offshore deposits off thecoast of Spain, and prospects for fracking in many areas, havetriggered a black-gold rush, with demand for exploration permits up35% since 2012. A report published this week by Deloitte says theoil industry could constitute 4.3 per cent of GDP by 2065 and makeSpain a net gas exporter by 2031.

European leaders on Wednesday asked Barack Obama to sharethe US’s shale gas bonanza with Europe by facilitating gas exportsto help counter the stranglehold Russia has on the continent’senergy needs. At an EU-US summit in Brussels, Barack Obama’s firstvisit to the city in office, the impact of Vladimir Putin’s seizureof Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula loomed large, affecting transatlanticrelations in various ways – from defence spending to energypolicies and trade talks.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storagr may be able totake the equivalent of China’s greenhouse gas emissions out of thecarbon cycle, and could be the radical policy shift needed to slowclimate change this century, a draft UN report shows.

Energy giant SSE will freeze household electricity and gasprices until 2016, the supplier has announced, placing pressure onits rivals to follow suit. It said the move would cut its annualprofits by £100m and would be partly funded by a £100m cost-cuttingprogramme including 500 job losses.

Air pollution reached dangerous levels on at least five dayslast year in several British cities, official figures show. Airquality was so poor on eight days in London that it was potentiallyharmful to healthy people not suffering from any lungproblems.

SSE has scrapped plans to invest £20bn in four majoroffshore wind projects and cast doubt on “the viability of thewider offshore wind sector”. The move is a blow for government,which has committed billions of pounds of consumers’ money intosubsidising offshore wind farms and on Tuesday hailed plans for anew turbine factory in Hull as proof its “strategy for offshorewind is working”.

Millions of households may be paying too much for theirenergy, regulator Ofgem is expected to say on Thursday. The energysector is likely to be referred to the top competition watchdog toface an investigation into allegations of profiteering.The Mailalso has thestory.

Researchers studying the effect of volcanic vents pumpingCO2 into a Pacific reef say the phenomenon gives us clues as to howocean acidification will affect the oceans. While some species maythrive, many will dwindle in numbers.

China’s plan for a market in air pollution permits promisesto help clean up its air cheaply, but the move could prove just asuseless as previous environmental policies unless the governmentstamps out lax enforcement and spotty data.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange has asked China’s securitiesregulator to make it mandatory for listed companies to report theirgreenhouse gas emissions to pave the way for new carbon-relatedfinancial products.

More ice means fewer elephant seal pups, according toAustralian scientists studying breeding colonies on MacquarieIsland near Antarctica and atmospheric changes in the region thathave affected the feeding grounds.

Professor Nigel Arnell, a lead author on the IPCC’s comingclimate impacts report, offers his preview. He says while it’stempting to brand the report political, it must in fact remain trueto the science, and scientists are there to ensure any statementsby politicians stick to the findings. Many regions will facemultiple impacts: south and southeast Asia, for example, are likelyto be exposed to risks of floods, drought and decreases in cropproductivity.

The FT’s Nick Butler welcomes the announcement of afull-scale competition enquiry into the UK energy market. Theinquiry will absorb a huge amount of time and effort over the nextyear but it offers the chance both for the industry to clear itsname by removing the cloud of public suspicion over pricingpolicies and simultaneously for individual companies to examinetheir own strategic positioning in a market which is changingrapidly, he says.

Ed Miliband has called energy company SSE’s decision tofreeze prices a victory for his own pledge to keep energy billsstatic after the election. But the Telegraphdisagrees.Telegraph

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is gatheringin Yokohama, Japan, to explore the array of impacts climate changeis having on the natural world. For one of Earth’s natural wonders,the Great Barrier Reef, the situation is stark – emissions must becut radically, and quickly, if the ecosystem is tosurvive.

Apocalyptic images of melting ice-caps, dying polar bearsand dried-up river beds are all pretty frightening, but are shocktactics really the best way to encourage our young to care for theplanet? Teachers are finding games are much moreeffective.

There isn’t just one kind of El Niño – there are three, saysa new study. And they affect global temperature differently:surface temperatures are anomalously warm during and after the moretraditional Eastern Pacific El Niño events, but not Central Pacificor mixed events. Changes in the frequency of the different types ofEl Niño may be linked to slowdowns in surface warming since thelate 1800s.