The Guardian reports that Europe has seen its hottest winter on record. The average temperature across Europe for December, January and February was 1.4C above the previous winter record, which was set in 2015-16, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the Guardian says. “New regional climate records are usually passed by only a fraction of a degree,” it notes. Europe’s winter was 3.4C hotter than the average from 1981-2010, adds the Guardian. BBC News reports that “the warmth was very evident in the north and east of the continent where a number of local temperature records were being broken”. Last month was also the second hottest February on record globally, it adds. Bloomberg carries a statement from Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, who says: “This was a truly extreme event in its own right. It is likely that these sorts of events have been made more extreme by the global warming trend.” Separately, the Guardian publishes a picture gallery of snowless scenes around Europe.

BBC News reports that the collapse of Flybe – Europe’s largest regional airline – could be the “start of more casualties”. Flybe collapsed yesterday after failing to secure new financial aid, BBC News says, adding that the airline was also pressured by a recent slump in passenger traffic driven by the coronavirus outbreak. Analysts say many more airlines could struggle to survive falling passenger numbers as a result of the virus, BBC News reports. Regional airlines in Asia could be particularly “vulnerable” as they rely heavily on passengers from China, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, analysts tell BBC News. Separately, BBC News reports that Southhampton Airport, Flybe’s UK transport hub, is to push forward with “ambitious plans” to expand in the wake of Flybe’s fold to allow larger aircraft used by companies, such as Easyjet and RyanAir, to start operations. “If the council says no – and it has previously declared a ‘climate emergency’ – the airport’s prospects are bleak,” says BBC South’s transport correspondent Paul Clifton. The Daily Mail reports that airlines have “pleaded” with the UK chancellor to cut air passenger duty in the upcoming government budget “to prevent more airlines from going bust”. An editorial in the Mail also says “cutting passenger duty would inflame the green lobby”. Meanwhile, a story in the Times says that many UK airlines are flying empty planes amid the virus outbreak in order to keep their airport landing slots. In the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic columnist Richard Littlejohn says that “we could be on the brink of a major realignment in the way we get around in future” as “air travel is under constant siege from the ‘climate emergency’ hysteria”.

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that support is building to end free EU carbon credits for aviation. The proposal, which would “end carbon allowances for airlines and make them buy all the pollution permits they need”, has been backed by at least seven member states, Reuters says. “Critics say the current system has removed the incentive for the sector to tackle its rising emissions,” Reuters reports, adding the carbon credits handed to airlines were worth 800m euros in 2019. In addition, Unearthed takes a look at “how the UN’s shady aviation organisation could upend a key effort to combat climate change”.

Meanwhile, BBC News reports that the UK’s National Infrastructure Strategy is to be further delayed and not released next week as expected. The detailed 30-year plan was to be published “alongside” the budget, the government said in December. BBC News says: “The delay will allow the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to refocus the strategy, to reflect potentially larger resources available, and to incorporate the challenge of achieving net-zero carbon emissions over the same 30-year timescale.”

Record sea-surface temperatures in much of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef region have intensified the risk that coral bleaching is already underway and could develop into another mass bleaching event, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Prof Terry Hughes, head of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, tells the Herald that weather warnings were sufficiently serious for him to order another round of aerial surveys to begin from 16 March. “The threat of [mass bleaching] is severe and imminent enough to redo the survey,” he tells the Herald. The Great Barrier Reef has faced four mass bleaching events since 1998, which are detailed in an in-depth feature published last year by Carbon Brief.

An editorial in the Financial Times says the EU’s new law designed to ensure net-zero emissions by 2050 is facing criticism on all fronts, with some arguing it is too “heavy-handed” and others arguing it is “insufficiently ambitious”. The FT says: “The most striking suggestion in the draft document is a proposal to deploy a ‘delegated act’, a powerful legal instrument, in the fight against climate change. This would allow Brussels to raise mandatory targets every five years from 2030 almost unilaterally.” The editorial says that the European Commission’s first steps “should be to publish a 2030 emissions target in the coming months rather than in September. It should also consider creating interim targets for the next decade.”

Meanwhile, an editorial in the Economist argues that the new UK chancellor Rishi Sunak should increase spending in his upcoming government budget. It adds that “some taxes should rise now”, arguing: “Raising fuel duty, which has been frozen for almost a decade, will bring in revenue and help wean Britain off fossil fuels.” Elsewhere, Dan Wootton, executive editor of the Sun, argues that “hardworking Brits don’t need to be taxed more on fuel”. Citing Carbon Brief analysis, he says: “Last year our emissions went down a further 2.9% – the seventh year in a row where we can celebrate a cut in carbon. We cut coal emissions last year alone by 29%, meaning it accounts for just 2% of our power. Meanwhile, China and India continue to build new coal-burning plants…Put simply, there is no need for ordinary motorists to be taxed even more on already expensive fuel.”

Owen Jones, the Guardian columnist, asks why climate change isn’t treated with the “same urgency” as the coronavirus outbreak. He says: “More than 3,000 people have succumbed to coronavirus yet, according to the World Health Organisation, air pollution alone – just one aspect of our central planetary crisis – kills seven million people every year.” He adds: “Coronavirus poses many challenges and threats, but few opportunities. A judicious response to global heating would provide affordable transport, well-insulated homes, skilled green jobs and clean air.”

A study finds that “Lepidosauria” – reptiles with overlapping scales such as iguanas, skinks and viper snakes– could be particularly vulnerable to global climate change. The analysis finds Neotropical, Afrotropical, Australian, and Nearctic realms contain the largest number of vulnerable species. The authors say: “These areas can be possible targets for conservation at a larger scale and may help to identify especially diverse areas for conservation efforts at a small scale, focusing on buffering the effects of climate change on local populations.”