A new study says global tourism accounts for 8% of CO2 emissions, around three times greater than previous estimates, the BBC reports. It says this includes emissions from tourists’ food, hotels and shopping, as well as from travel. The report found the US, followed by China, Germany and India top the rankings of tourism CO2 impacts, the BBC adds. The Independent, AFP and others also have the story. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of the new research.

Warming oceans could negatively affect animals in marine protected areas, according to widely covered new research. By 2100, these protected parts of the ocean could be 2.8C warmer than they are today if emissions continue to rise, Sky News reports. It carries a quote from lead scientist Prof John Bruno of the University of North Caroline, saying: “With warming of this magnitude, we expect to lose many, if not most, animal species from Marine Protected Areas by the turn of the century.” Polar bears and penguins are among the species under greatest threat under business-as-usual emissions, reports the Press Association. Polar bears and other species “could be wiped out within 40 years if global warming continues to make oceans hotter”, says a news brief from Metro. ITV News, the Atlantic and Quartz are among the many other outlets with the story.

The UK government is set to unveil more details of a planned 2040 ban on fossil-fuelled cars and vans, reports the Financial Times, in a move that could cover current hybrids as well as pure petrol and diesel vehicles. The paper adds that the exact wording of a consultation on the plans is subject to agreement within government, with the environment and business secretaries backing a hybrid ban and the transport secretary against. Separate reporting by Autocar suggests the proposals are expected imminently and could ban sales of new cars that can travel less than 50 miles on electricity. The car industry has “hit out” at the unconfirmed reports, says the BBC, arguing the targets were “unrealistic”. The Guardian also has the story. Environmentalists say the plans are in any case not ambitious enough, calling for an earlier 2030 ban, reports the Independent. In a comment piece also published by the Independent, WWF’s James Beard writes that “we’re seeing a dash for hybrids that is costly for consumers and slows down efforts to reduce pollution”.

Conservative former energy minister Michael Fallon is calling on the government to set a 60% target for the British content of new offshore wind developments, reports the Telegraph. In a letter to business secretary Greg Clark, Fallon says raising the current target from 50%, to support domestic manufacturers, could make Britain a “leading player in a fast-growing global industry”, the Telegraph adds. Separately, the Independent reports on a change in UK policy that has seen applications for new onshore windfarms fall by 94% and was made without considering climate or economic impacts. The report is based on freedom of information requests made by DeSmog UK. In making the change, government considered the impacts on families, equality and local democracy, but not jobs, energy bills or carbon emissions, DeSmog UK reports.

The Labour party is divided over whether to back further nuclear power stations in the UK, the Financial Times reports. It says the high cost of the Hinkley C plant, under construction for £20bn in Somerset, “has prompted questions across Westminster about whether nuclear still represents value for money”. Debate is particularly intense within the Labour Party, it adds, with Jeremy Corbyn a life-long sceptic who “swung behind it early last year, just before a by-election in Copeland, home of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site”. The paper says “senior people in the nuclear industry…remained confident about Labour’s continued support for their projects, because of the strength of union backing”.

CO2 levels in the atmosphere reached their highest levels in recorded history last month, reports USA Today. The 410 parts per million concentration is the highest in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, it adds. April 2018 was the first time the monthly average had exceeded 410ppm, says the Independent.

“No graver threat faces the future of South Florida than the accelerating pace of sea-level rise,” begins an editorial for the Miami Herald, which says that sea level is predicted to rise “another 2 feet” by 2060. The editorial explains why the Herald is “joining hands” with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post and WLRN Public Media to “raise awareness about the threat facing South Florida from sea-level rise”. It continues: “In drumbeat fashion, we plan to inform, engage, provoke and build momentum to address the slow-motion tidal wave coming our way…Sea-level rise is the defining issue of the 21st Century for South Florida. Some of us might not live long enough to see its full effects, but our children and grandchildren will.”

In an article for Vox drawing together several recent publications, David Roberts explores what it would take to hit the 1.5 and 2C climate goals “with no loopholes”. Most scenarios rely on negative emissions to give us room to emit more earlier in the century, Roberts explains, even though the technology is non-existent at “any serious scale”. He writes: “Plenty of people reasonably conclude that’s a bad idea, but alternatives have been difficult to come by. There hasn’t been much scenario-building around truly ambitious goals: to zero out carbon as fast as possible, to hold temperature rise as close to 1.5 degrees as possible, and, most significantly, to do so while minimising the need for negative emissions.” This would entail “radically” increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy, electrifying as much as possible and even then “still maybe do[ing] a little negative emissions”. Carbon Brief covered one of the new publications discussed by Roberts in April.

Career US diplomats at the UN climate talks in Bonn are in an “awkward spot”, reports Inside Climate News. It says: “Even though the Trump administration has renounced the treaty, the United States has not yet withdrawn, and Washington would like to influence the discussions. But the Trump foreign policy team, now more than ever, is a tight cabal of hard-line foes of climate action.” Meanwhile Climate Home News reports on the start, in Bonn, of the Talanoa Dialogue, in which climate negotiators and the wider world are assessing progress on tackling climate change. Meanwhile, Climate Home Newsalso reports that expectations for the Bonn meeting have been tempered after UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa told journalists there would be no single negotiating text coming out of the talks, as had been hoped before the intersessional started last week.

“Improvements in [extreme weather] attribution are leading to a whole new response to climate change: lawsuits,” says Adam Rogers in Wired magazine. In a feature that traces the development of attribution science over the past 15 years, Rogers goes on to explore the current range of climate lawsuits, from those relating to appropriate risk management in new construction projects to attempts to “hold actual carbon emitters accountable for climate change-related damages”. Separately, Oxford University attribution scientist Dr Friederike Otto talks to the Independent about recent temperature extremes in the UK. Otto explains: “We have seen spring starting earlier, and we might have just got used to that – so it feels more unusual when we have horribly cold days, even though it is not that unusual.” Last year, Carbon Brief mapped all the studies then published on links between climate change and extreme weather events.

Up to 42% of marine protected areas could experience losses in biodiversity by the middle of the century as a result of climate change, research finds. The research finds that, if little is done to mitigate global warming, sea temperatures could warm by 2.8C by the end of the century, which could “likely result in further habitat and species losses,” the researchers say.

A belief in conspiracy theories, climate scepticism and political conservatism are more closely linked in the US than in 24 other countries, a study finds. “This suggests that there is a political culture in the United States that offers particularly strong encouragement for citizens to appraise climate science through the lens of their worldviews,” the researchers say.