US president Donald Trump has announced he will extend the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or “face the destruction of its energy plants” by 10 days, until 6 April, according to Reuters. The newswire says this comes after Iran “rejected a 15-point ​US proposal to end the fighting as unfair”. The New York Times notes that Trump first made the threat on Saturday, “saying he would destroy [Iran’s] power plants if it did not comply within 48 hours”. This would be a significant escalation that risks “Iranian reprisals of oil infrastructure across the Gulf”, the newspaper adds. Trump claimed that talks with Iran were now underway and “going very well”, according to Reuters. Various newspaper frontpages, including those of the Guardian, the Times and the Daily Telegraph, feature Trump’s decision to delay further attacks. 

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Iran has “likely earned hundreds of millions of dollars of extra income from oil sales since the start of the war”, benefiting from a surge in oil prices as it is the only major exporter able to use the Strait of Hormuz. Semafor reports on findings from Rystad Energy that repair costs from damage and shutdowns hitting fossil-fuel infrastructure in the Middle East could already amount to $25bn.

MORE ON ENERGY CRISIS

• BBC News reports on how African nations, including Zimbabwe, South Sudan and Mauritius, are taking emergency measures such as rationing power and diluting petrol to cope with the effects of the Iran war.
• Three separate Reuters articles report that Norway and Vietnam have both cut fuel taxes temporarily, while Romania is considering similar measures.
• Bloomberg reports that India has announced tax changes including a levy on fuel exports, in an attempt to shield consumers from the impact of the conflict.
• Prime minister Anthony Albanese has reassured Australians that the nation’s fuel supply remains “secure”, following reports of panic buying, according to BBC News. Meanwhile, Australian “transport advocates” have called for a rollout of electric buses, reports the Guardian.
• Large liquified natural gas (LNG) plants were forced shut by a cyclone off western Australia, squeezing supplies “already stretched thin by war in the Middle East”, reports Agence France-Presse.
• Reuters reports that the European Commission has told EU governments to start refilling their gas storage as soon as ​possible to prepare for next winter.

Japan has announced that it will allow more use of coal power plants in an effort to boost energy security and cope with the shock of the Middle East war, according to Bloomberg. The news outlet says Japan will now let less-efficient coal facilities take part in capacity market auctions in the new fiscal year. Previously, such plants had been restricted from these auctions as a measure to “tackle climate change”, Bloomberg notes. Reuters explains that Japan takes delivery of around 6% of its total imports of liquified natural gas (LNG) annually via the Strait ​of Hormuz. The newswire adds that the government says the new measure will avoid 10% of these LNG imports.

MORE ON FOSSIL FUELS

• Reuters reports on the “multibillion-dollar windfall” that big oil companies are set to make because of soaring prices
• Oil giant TotalEnergies says the world will not be able to reach net-zero by 2050 – as outlined in the Paris ​Agreement – and that it intends to reassess its own 2050 net-zero goal, according to Reuters.
• Reporting from CERAWeek, a major annual gathering of US fossil-fuel executives and policymakers, the New York Times Climate Forward newsletter looks at what the industry is saying about the war in Iran.
• US officials at CERAWeek have said that the historic spike in fuel prices underway during the war in Iran will be short-term and “trumpeted record US production”, according to Reuters.
• The Financial Times reports that, while the Trump administration has been “a boon for the fossil fuel industry”, some executives at CERAWeek noted that “growing uncertainty” could translate into a block for future investments and economic growth.

Sea ice in the Arctic has tied last year’s record for its lowest-ever winter peak extent, reports Bloomberg. The findings “add to the clear signals that the Arctic is undergoing a rapid shift as the fastest-warming part of the world”, the outlet says. Sea ice came in just below last year’s level at 14.29m km2, a “statistical tie” with last year’s all-time low of 14.31m km2, Agence France-Presse explains. It adds that previous records were set in 2016, 2017 and 2018. CNN describes this as an “alarming new low” and the “latest profoundly worrying signal from the top of the planet, a region which has become a clear victim of the climate crisis”. The New York Times notes that major research cuts by the Trump administration have hit the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which monitors sea ice, resulting in it having to “suspend and reduce” several of its services and tools due to lack of funds. Scientific American also has the story.

China-UK economic and green cooperation is “mutually beneficial and should not be undermined by over-politicisation or over-securitisation”, according to Lin Jian, spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, in response to the UK’s decision to block a wind turbine factory in Scotland, reports the Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper. The company behind the plans, Ming Yang, said that it will continue engaging with the UK government and hopes to resume its investment plans after policy changes, according to industry outlet Energy New Media. Meanwhile, Zhang Chuanwei, founder and chairman of Ming Yang, told business news outlet Jiemian he had made a point to senior UK officials that the company could reduce offshore wind costs by 40%, bringing electricity prices down to 1 yuan ($0.14) per kilowatt-hour in three years. Another Jiemian report says the UK is increasingly shifting from “testing the waters” to a “clear necessity” toward Chinese new energy storage companies amid “rigid demand” from its energy transition.

MORE ON CHINA

• Liu Zhenmin, China’s climate envoy, said there will not be an “oil or gas crisis in China” amid the Middle East conflict, reports Bloomberg. Zhou Xiaochuan, former PBoC governor, said China will use market-based tools to advance its emissions-reduction and climate goals, reports China Times.
• Guo Wei, with China Carbon Innovation Investment, discusses practical pathways of China’s carbon reduction targets in an article in Caijing.
• 21st Century Business Herald says some local projects have already used much of the “15th five-year plan” emissions growth space.
• BJX News reports China’s newly added “new energy storage” capacity rose 27% in 2025, equivalent to 8.6% of total additions and 10.4% of renewables.
• A Xinhua comment says that a surge in NEV sales globally “delivers a fresh rebuttal to the so-called ‘overcapacity’ narrative”.
• People’s Daily calls for promoting high-quality development of Xiong’an New Area through “green, low-carbon” development.

UK energy supplier Octopus Energy says it has seen solar panel sales rise sharply since the start of the Iran war, with households also opting for larger arrays of panels, the Guardian reports. The company says sales were up 54% this month compared with the same period last month, the newspaper adds. The article notes that other suppliers, such as Good Energy, are also seeing a surge in interest. Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus, tells BBC News that with a fossil-fuel driven increase in energy prices looming, there has been a “huge jolt” in sales of solar panels and heat pumps, as well as enquiries about electric vehicles. 

Bloomberg reporting suggests that this is part of a wider trend, with the Iran war’s impact on energy prices “spurring people around the world to abandon fossil fuels in favor of cheaper electric alternatives”. The Guardian also considers this trend with an article titled: “What does the Iran war mean for clean energy transition?” Reuters reports on similar messaging about the benefits of renewables for energy security coming from executives at the CERAWeek conference in Houston.

MORE ON UK

• Co-owner of GB News and “committed” Christian Paul Marshall has been criticised by a group of church leaders – including former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and two current bishops – over the channel’s attacks on climate action, according to the Guardian.
• Bloomberg has a lengthy interview with Green party leader Zack Polanski, in which they discuss Polanski’s views on climate policy and how energy can be made more affordable by “taxing billionaires”. And Sky News reports that Green MPs have written to energy secretary Ed Miliband “demanding he set out plans to decouple electricity prices from gas”.
• Bloomberg reports that the UK will “award another round of leases for offshore wind farms next year as it seeks to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels”.
• The Financial Times reports on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) concluding that the UK faces the biggest hit to growth from the Iran war of all G20 economies, underlining its exposure to the “global energy shock”.
• The Daily Telegraph reports on a fossil-fuel company wanting to drill for gas in Shetland and the Times reports on US ambassador Warren Stephens saying the UK should use its North Sea oil and gas reserves.
• A frontpage story in the Daily Mail gathers together Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and “some of Britain’s top business chiefs” to call Labour chancellor Rachell Reeves a “petrol profiteer” because of increased tax receipts from higher petrol and diesel prices.

An editorial in the Hindu reflects on India’s updated national climate plan, which it released this week long after the official deadline under the Paris Agreement. “India came in late, but it was worth the wait,” the editorial says, with “the necessary boxes… ticked”. The newspaper notes that the government has committed to reaching an installed electricity capacity of 60% from non-fossil fuel sources by 2035. It continues: “India’s 2035 goals are easily achievable and the government has expressed that plainly. India already met its 2030 non-fossil target last year, with 52% capacity installed.” However, it adds: “The rub is that only about 25% of the power generated is non-fossil due to insufficient battery storage which is unable to harness all the available solar and wind power.” The editorial says the Middle East conflict demonstrates the “chokehold” that fossil fuels have on the world and concludes: “India must exhibit more urgency toward enhancing battery storage and improving its electric grid to better utilise existing non-fossil capacity.”

Elsewhere, Bloomberg’s senior climate reporter Akshat Rathi has an analysis piece about India’s “meagre” new climate plan, which he says “limit[s] the prospects of major progress through 2035 from the three biggest polluting nations”.

Noah Walker-Crawford, a research fellow at Imperial College London and the London School of Economics, writes in the Guardian about the acceptance among oil companies that climate change is “real, human-caused and serious”. He says “the era of corporate climate denial, at least in legal proceedings, is largely over”, but points to “a more nuanced position: accepting the science of climate change while contesting their responsibility for it”. Walker-Crawford points to new research that offers the first systematic analysis of “how major fossil fuel companies defend themselves when taken to court over their role in causing global warming”. He concludes: “The central battleground in climate litigation will no longer be whether climate change is happening, but who, legally and financially, bears responsibility for it.”

Also in the Guardian, an editorial on China and Iran says the war “poses bigger questions for Beijing than where to get its oil”.

MORE COMMENT

• Reuters energy columnist Ron Bousso writes that the EU “may be forced to scale back its flagship climate policies and geopolitical aims as the Iran war drives up energy prices”.
• Jeremy Grant, the Scotsman’s business columnist, has an article about how “geopolitics and national security” led to the UK government’s decision to exclude Chinese wind turbine manufacturer Ming Yang from the UK supply chain.
• The Daily Telegraph’s international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard warns of a “coming global food crisis” resulting from disrupted fertiliser production caused by the Iran war.
• The Times chief business commentator Alistair Osborne argues that more domestic oil and gas from the North Sea “would boost energy security, jobs, tax revenues and our balance of payments”. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck on this topic.]
• Daily Express personal finance editor Harvey Jones says energy secretary Ed Miliband is “off his rocker” for not wanting more drilling in the North Sea, while a Sun editorial accuses Miliband of “eco-madness”. In the Times, chief political commentator Patrick Maguire says Miliband is “Labour’s real leader”.
• The climate-sceptic Wall Street Journal has an editorial criticising the US Democrats’s energy policies, notably their opposition to fossil fuels.

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.