Theresa May has been accused of turning the UK’s special relationship with the US into a “pact of silence” on climate change by refusing to speak out about the prospect of Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement. Germany, France, the EU and China have all made clear the importance of the landmark deal, and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is believed to be planning to write to Mr Trump to that effect. But the Independent reports that May has “ignored requests to speak out from campaign groups including Oxfam, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, WWF, Christian Aid, Cafod and Greenpeace…A petition by Greenpeace calling on Ms May to speak to Mr Trump, saying “if there’s one person President Donald Trump will listen to, it’s our Prime Minister” because of her apparent good relations with him, has attracted about 150,000 signatures.” Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party, has called the UK’s silence “shameful”. Separately, the Independent reports that Pope Francis says he will “stand up to Donald Trump on immigration and climate change” when they meet for the first time later this month at the Vatican.

Emmanuel Macron was inaugurated yesterday as France’s new president at the Elysée Palace in Paris. In his inauguration speech, Macron said he will do everything necessary to fight terrorism and authoritarianism and to resolve the world’s migration crisis. He also listed “the excesses of capitalism in the world” and climate change among his future challenges. Meanwhile, the out-going president, Francois Hollande, defended his unpopular presidency in a series of tweets. He included the Paris Agreement on climate change among his accomplishments.

One of Britain’s biggest managers of ethical funds is to dump £20m of shares in fossil fuel companies in one of the biggest divestments so far because of climate change. Shares in BHP Billiton, the Anglo-Australian mining giant, will be among those sold by BMO Global Asset Management’s range of “responsible” funds, which manage £1.5bn of assets. They were previously known as the “stewardship” funds, the first ethical funds launched in Britain. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, played a crucial role in the divestment, as president of BMO’s responsible investment council. The Church of England has already pulled out of investing in companies that make more than 10% of its revenues from thermal coal or oil from tar sands. BMO’s divestment goes further, banning all companies with fossil fuel reserves from being in its responsible funds range.

The Times says that one of the energy companies’ main arguments against a price cap has “collapsed” after the competition watchdog’s alternative plan to help consumers was shelved indefinitely. The paper explains: “The industry has argued that reforms proposed by the Competition and Markets Authority last year should be allowed to work before the government intervenes further in the market. However, the CMA’s principal recommendation, a database giving rival suppliers the contact details of households that have not switched, has been kicked into the long grass after problems in trials.”

Countries at the on-going climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have demanded that the UN climate convention continues funding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reports Climate Home. “A draft 2018-19 budget from the UNFCCC proposes to eliminate its funding for the IPCC, asking countries to support the body with direct voluntary payments. But according to several sources present at a budget discussion on Wednesday evening, countries rounded on the UN secretariat. Shifting the onus of the funding from the core budget of the UNFCCC, which is funded by compulsory contributions from member states, to individual country donors, would allow some to free-ride. Rarely so united at these talks, the majority of parties rejected the secretariat’s proposal.”

The FT reports that oil prices have risen after the energy ministers from Saudi Arabia and Russia said they backed extending an Opec-led agreement to cut output until March 2018. “Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak met on Monday in Beijing and discussed oil output policy. Russia is the world’s biggest oil producer, while Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter…They agreed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to reduce global oil stockpiles to their five-year average levels, underscoring the challenge they have faced in shrinking excess inventories and bringing the oil market into balance. Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 1.4% to $51.56 a barrel.”

Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, is to “turn its back on fossil fuels”, reports the FT by ramping up its use of solar panels. The supermarket says it is pledging to cut its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the toughest goals of the Paris climate accord, which it says represents “the strongest hope that we can avoid dangerous climate change”. The FT adds: “Tesco says it will cut its emissions in line with the more ambitious 1.5C target, partly by securing 100% of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar panels by 2030 and by pushing its suppliers to become greener…Refrigeration gases account for 15% of the company’s emissions, according to Kené Umeasiegbu, Tesco’s head of climate change. Another 12% comes from its delivery vehicles; 7.5% from heating and 0.5% from business travel.”

Business leaders have called for the next government to build two more runways, demanding that a follow-up Airports Commission be established only months after Heathrow’s third runway was approved. The Institute of Directors urged that a fast-track commission be set up immediately after the election to recommend locations for two additional runways within a year. John Stewart, chair of anti-Heathrow expansion group Hacan, said the IoD was “living in a fantasy world”. He added: “Because of the opposition, it takes years to build one runway. To try to build three at a time would create a nationwide network of opposition from local resident groups and climate change activists, the likes of which the UK has not seen before.”

Evans-Pritchard takes a closer look at a forecast by a Stanford University economist which has “gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries”: He says: “No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century. This is the futuristic forecast by Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030…Prof Seba’s premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch en masse to self-drive electric vehicles (EVs) that are ten times cheaper to run than fossil-based cars, with a near-zero marginal cost of fuel and an expected lifespan of 1m miles. Only nostalgics will cling to the old habit of car ownership. The rest will adapt to vehicles on demand.” This will not be driven by climate policies, says Evans-Pritchard, but simply technology: “The world’s geopolitical order will be reshaped almost overnight. But humanity as a whole should enjoy an enormous welfare gain.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports that “demand for gasoline in Asia may peak much earlier than expected as millions of people in China and India buy electric vehicles over the next decade, threatening wrenching change for the oil industry, oil and auto company executives warned”.

An editorial in the Times notes that Rex Tillerson, Trump’s secretary of state, signed a joint declaration last week in Alaska which hints that the new US administration might be changing its opposition to climate action: “While this week’s Fairbanks Declaration does not actually contain an American pledge to support the Paris accord or an explicit acceptance of man-made climate change, it does suggest the Trump administration is beginning to moderate its position. Not before time. As long as Mr Trump denies the substantial effects of climate change in the high Arctic, he will blindside himself to one of the key strategic challenges of the coming decade…The US and indeed other western states need to be better prepared for the way newly open sea routes will change geopolitics. The first step is for the Trump administration to examine more carefully the scientific evidence of change in the far north and understand the impact of that change on relations with other big powers. The permafrost is thawing but there is no sign that Mr Putin intends to warm up with it.”

A business page editorial in the Observer argues that the debate in the UK over energy price caps is a short-term “sticking plaster”. It adds: “The elephant in the room, and the only real long-term answer to reducing how much we pay, is energy efficiency. As one industry figure admits, it’s ‘not electoral Viagra’. But experts agree that new boilers, better appliances, insulating the solid walls of 100-year-old homes and properly lagged lofts are the only true fix…[The Big Six] pay lip service to energy efficiency but in private they hate it. Like warm weather, it reduces consumption and profits. One of the six lobbied relentlessly to cut energy-efficiency measures in a row over bills in 2013, when prices had also risen.”

In a feature for the Sunday Telegraph, Ambrose looks at the changing demands on the National Grid: “A boom in chargeable cars could mean an increase in electricity demand of 13- 21 TWh. By 2030 this could mean a drain of 1GW, or two large gas-fired power plants, at peak times. But National Grid believes there is the potential for the flow of electricity to go both ways, from the grid to the battery and vice-versa. How EVs affect demand could be shaped by a number of factors: consumers could take up so-called “time-of use-tariffs” which offer cheap deals to charge up when demand is low. This would allow National Grid to make better use of surging wind and solar power on balmy summer Sunday afternoons. Conversely, the energy stored in the vehicle could be used to avoid peak tariffs imposed at times of low demand by flipping the mobile batteries to export power on dark January evenings. It is the latest example of a major disruptive force in the balancing act between power generation and how it is used.”

Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite imagery is helping scientists to better understand dynamic and structural changes taking place on the Wilkins ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. A partial collapse has seen the ice shelf lose 15% of its area relative to 2007, the paper notes, equivalent to around 2135 square kilometres. The images also identify areas that are important for ‘buttressing’ the outflow from inland glaciers, and regions that may be prone to fracturing in future.

A new study mapping the carbon footprint associated with household consumption in the EU finds large variation across the 177 regions and 27 countries assessed. Ranging from 0.6 to 6.5 tonnes CO2e per capita, the main driver was found to be income though household size, education, temperature, resource availability and carbon intensity of the electricity mix also stood out as important factors. The country differences suggest notable disparity with regards to climate change responsibility, say the authors.