The White House said that Chinese president Xi Jinping has “expressed interest” in buying more US oil to reduce China’s dependence on the strait of Hormuz, according to a readout of yesterday’s meeting between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, reports Reuters. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that Trump and Xi also agreed that the strait must remain open to “support the free flow of energy”. In an interview with Fox News, Trump confirmed that Xi “likes the idea of buying more US oil”, reports Bloomberg. State-run newspaper China Daily says “expanding energy ties between China and the US will contribute to broader bilateral economic cooperation”. Chinese ambassador to the US Xie Feng calls on China and California to embrace “green growth”, reports China Daily. The Trump-Xi meeting has no climate agenda because they are now moving in “radically different directions”, says Legal Planet.

The Financial Times reports that US ethane exports have reached “record levels” as Chinese refineries desperately import the raw material. Another Financial Times report says that Chinese exports of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel have failed to rebound even after Beijing signalled it would relax an export ban. The Iran war could cause the “second-biggest contraction on record” of Chinese gasoline demand, reports Bloomberg. Zhang Shuwei, chief economist at Draworld Environment Research Centre, writes in Dialogue Earth that the war is unlikely to drive up China’s use of coal.

MORE ON CHINA

• BJX News reports that Chinese solar firms have laid off 60,000 workers compared to 2024 levels as the sector continues to struggle with overcapacity.
• China’s newly added installed capacity of new energy storage reached 13.1GWh, up 45.5% year-on-year, reports BJX News. Meanwhile, the NEA has issued a “quality supervision outline” for new energy storage power station construction projects, according to another BJX News report.
• Ideacarbon reports that China has begun industrial energy conservation supervision this year to strengthen energy conservation and carbon reduction.
• Huang Runqiu, head of China’s MEE, met Simon Stiell, UN climate change executive secretary and COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum in Beijing, according to reports by 21st Century Business Herald and Tanpaifang.
• Reuters reports that Chinese firms in Indonesia are protesting the country’s “nickel ore quotas, higher taxes and a new pricing formula”.
• Global Times says in an unbylined opinion article that China’s clean-tech manufacturing capacity and climate commitment are “indispensable”.

A new strategy will double the capacity of Canada’s electricity grid by 2050, in part “by expanding the role that natural gas plays in the energy mix”, according to CBC News. The news outlet says the plan – titled “powering Canada strong” – stresses that gas “has one of the lowest emissions intensities in the world” and is important for “meeting baseload generation needs”. Bloomberg notes that the plan involves the government “adjusting its clean electricity rules to give more flexibility on power generation using natural gas”. Reuters explains that the C$1tn ($729bn) strategy cites “‌rapidly increasing power demand and the need for energy security”. The newswire notes that Canadian electricity generation has ⁠fallen, partly due to droughts that have cut hydropower ​capacity. The National Post says the Canadian government is seeking to expand ports, mines, liquified natural gas (LNG) export facilities and datacentres, “which are projected to increase electricity demand”.

MORE ON CANADA

• Bloomberg says Canada’s target to cut emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 is “in question” after prime minister Mark Carney said his government will “update” its climate plan.
• Carney has also told reporters that officials from the Canadian government and the ​energy-producing province of ‌Alberta will meet today to advance ​a new potential oil pipeline, reports Reuters.

The UK has halved its most recent contribution to the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) as part of a government “shift from development aid to military spending”, according to Climate Home News. The news outlet explains that the UK’s previous Conservative government pledged £1.6bn ($2.2bn) for the 2024-27 period, but has now informed the GCF it will only deliver £815m ($1.1bn). Climate Home News adds that “there are fears that other countries could follow suit as governments in Europe trim their aid budgets” – and the US already withdrew all its outstanding pledges. The Financial Times says the move “will reinforce concerns that rich countries are retreating from a promise to help developing nations respond to global warming”. The newspaper explains that the fund oversees $20bn committed to climate projects and is assessing what the UK’s cuts will mean for projects under consideration over the next two years.

MORE ON UK

• The New World reports that Rupert Murdoch’s online TV station Talk has been reprimanded by UK watchdog Ofcom after it broadcast an interview in which “independent energy consultant” Kathryn Porter claimed, unchallenged, that the Met Office made up some of its weather data.
• The UK government has given planning permission to three offshore wind farms, which could provide as much as 4 gigawatts of new capacity, reports Bloomberg.
• National Grid chief executive Zoë Yujnovich tells the Daily Telegraph that the costs of expanding electricity transmission lines will help to reduce about £12bn of constraint costs, which are otherwise paid to wind and solar developers to switch off when they are generating more power than the grid can handle.

The Trump administration in the US is formally proposing to roll back a Biden-era rule that stops coal power plants from releasing hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic metals into nearby waters, according to the New York Times. The newspaper quotes Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin, who says repealing the rule would prevent coal plants from shutting down and depriving datacentres of electricity. Bloomberg says the EPA is planning to replace the wastewater regulations with new ones that provide companies with the flexibility to set their own limits. The news outlet describes these actions as “the administration’s latest effort to boost the nation’s shrinking coal sector”.

A year on since the Trump administration began issuing orders to keep five ageing coal plants open past their scheduled closures, citing an “energy emergency”, the New York Times reports that “keeping the plants open has already cost hundreds of millions of dollars”.

MORE ON US

• Power prices on the largest electric grid in the US, which covers 13 states, jumped 76% in the first quarter “due to rampant demand from datacentres”, reports Bloomberg.
• An Associated Press article provides “a look at the offshore wind industry, both in the US and globally, by the numbers”.
• The Financial Times reports that Abu Dhabi has backed the construction of a new $13bn liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Louisiana, “as concern over Middle East supply disruption spurs a fresh wave of US energy development”.
• The Trump administration has proposed offering nearly 80,000 acres in Arizona for oil and gas drilling, but the Arizona Republic reports that “geologists expressed doubts about the proposal, citing Arizona’s lack of hydrocarbon reserves”.
• Bloomberg reports on how US southern communities have been “left reeling” by Trump administration cuts to energy grants.
• Politico reports on New York state “weakening” its climate law and notes that New York congresswoman and “green new deal champion” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has “remained silent” on the issue.

The Cuban government says it has completely run out of diesel and fuel oil – which the country relies on for power generation – amid what the Financial Times calls “US president Donald Trump’s near-total energy blockade”. The newspaper notes that Cuba produces 40% of its oil domestically and China has donated solar panels, which have “alleviat[ed] some of the power crunch”. Al Jazeera says the Cuban government attributes the situation to the US blockade and threats of tariffs against countries supplying fuel to Cuba. Reuters says the country’s electricity system “suffered a partial collapse” yesterday, extinguishing power across eastern Cuba. The New York Times cites Cuban energy minister Vicente de la O Levy, who says even solar power cannot not be relied on because the grid is too weak to handle the electric current supplied by solar farms.

MORE ON ENERGY SHORTAGES

• Amid fuel shortages sparked by the Iran war, Asian nations including India and Indonesia are ​​pushing policies to increase fuel mixing with biofuels, according to the Associated Press.
• The Philippines, which is “already reeling from high fuel prices due to the US-Israeli war with Iran”, is facing power cuts linked to “searing heat and power plant outages”, reports Reuters.
• The government in Vietnam is calling on businesses and households to do more ​to save energy, as electricity consumption surges due to hot weather, according to Reuters.
• Bloomberg covers a report by the the Energy Transitions Commission, whose members include executives from HSBC and Shell, which concludes that “clean energy systems are structurally immune” to shocks such as the current Middle East crisis.

New forecasts suggest with increasing confidence that the developing El Niño weather event in the tropical Pacific Ocean “could be one of the strongest on record with warnings of record global temperatures and huge humanitarian impacts”, according to BBC News. The news outlet adds that the latest outlook from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US says El Niño will likely begin within the month. Reuters says the US forecaster sees an 82% probability of El Niño developing during May-July 2026. The newswire notes that the event increases the chances of flood and drought, “which can impact crops”. Financial Times columnist Alan Beattie stresses that “the problem, El Niño or not, is that Donald Trump’s Iran war on top of the uncertainty of climate change has made global food supply more vulnerable than for decades”.

Reflecting on the “largest supply shock in petroleum history”, triggered by the conflict in Iran, an Economist editorial notes that “oil markets look strangely calm”. However, it adds that “a full-blown energy disaster may be weeks away”. The article explains that the current “placidity of crude markets” is explained by high exports from the US, lower imports into China and “demand-destroying rationing in poor countries”. It adds that the world entered the war with large oil stocks, but “even American and Chinese national reserves will not last forever, let alone the thin stocks of poor countries”. As stocks are used, it explains that “prices could then rise convulsively”, something that could be exacerbated if the US decides to introduce an export ban.

Meanwhile, Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire writes that Russian exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) and oil are “quietly playing a key role in cushioning global commodity markets from the full impact of the war with Iran and collapse in energy exports from the Middle East”. 

MORE COMMENT

• An editorial in the Hindu says India needs a “national cooling doctrine; a scalable framework that treats sustained access to safe indoor temperatures as a public-health entitlement to be guaranteed”.
• A Washington Post editorial takes aim at Graham Platner, the Democrat Senate candidate in the US state of Maine, calling his idea for a windfall profits tax on oil companies a “fantasy”.
• A Wall Street Journal editorial accuses Democrats in California of using insurer State Farm as a “scapegoat” to “deflect frustration over the government blunders responding to Los Angeles’s horrific wildfires last year”.
• An editorial in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph says the UK’s Green party should be blocked from power “at every level”.
• There is more criticism of UK energy secretary Ed Miliband in the Daily Telegraph, with columnist Matthew Lynn stating that the UK’s new “energy independence bill” provides “a glimpse of how terrifying prime minister Miliband would be”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Josh Gabbatiss, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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