US president Donald Trump has proposed significant changes to a longstanding law that forces developers to assess the environmental impact of major infrastructure projects before starting construction, reports the FT and many others. It continues: “The US president announced on Thursday that his administration planned to change the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] to make it easier for builders to get approval before beginning projects such as roads, pipelines and power plants.” Trump said that “many of America’s most critical infrastructure projects have been tied up and bogged down” in the past “by an outrageously slow and burdensome federal approval process”. The move would “slash job-killing regulations and improve the quality of life for all of our citizens”, Trump added. The NEPA law was brought in by President Richard Nixon in 1970, says the Washington Post. Reuters describes the move as “one of the biggest deregulatory actions of the president’s tenure”, noting that “the proposed rule says federal agencies would not need to factor in the ‘cumulative impacts’ of a project, which could include its impact on climate change, making it easier for major fossil fuel projects to sail through the approval process and avoid legal challenges”. The change would also limit agencies to “a two-year timeline for conducting their comprehensive environmental reviews”, says Axios, as well mean “projects that do not have major federal funding or involvement would no longer require assessment”. The implication is that “agencies will not have to examine whether a pipeline, mine or other fossil fuel project would worsen climate change”, says the New York Times: “It also means there will not be any requirement to understand how or whether a road or bridge in a coastal area would be threatened by sea level rise.” The proposal was “met with strong resistance from a number of Democratic lawmakers and nearly every major environmental group”, reports the Hill: “Various groups and lawmakers described the proposal as misguided, profoundly irresponsible, unlawful and turning ‘a blind eye to the climate crisis’.” The White House did not say how soon the proposal would be implemented, notes Politico: “It first must go through a 60-day comment period. And expected lawsuits from environmental groups and Democratic state attorneys general could keep the rule tied up in court until after the election.” InsideClimate News and E&E News also have the story.

At the announcement, Trump said that “nothing’s a hoax” about climate change, reports the Hill. He told reporters: “Nothing’s a hoax about that. It’s a very serious subject. I want clean air; I want clean water. I want the cleanest air with the cleanest water. The environment’s very important to me.” Trump has previously expressed scepticism about climate change, the Hill notes. Trump also said he is going to acquire a book entitled “Donald J Trump: An Environmental Hero”, by Edward Russo, reports the Guardian. Trump said: “Somebody wrote a book that I’m an environmentalist – it’s actually called The Environmentalist … I’d like to get it.”

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has rejected criticism of his government’s climate change policies amid the ongoing bushfire crisis, reports the Guardian. With bushfires raging across four states, Morrison told Sydney radio, 2GB, in an interview: “We don’t want job-destroying, economy-destroying, economy-wrecking targets and goals, which won’t change the fact that there have been bushfires or anything like that in Australia.” He added: “The suggestion that there’s any one emissions reduction policy or climate policy that has contributed directly to any of these fire events is just ridiculous and the conflation of those two things, I think, has been very disappointing.”

Elsewhere, the Guardian also reports that a senior News Corp employee has accused the company of “misinformation” and diverting attention from climate change during the bushfire crisis. In an “explosive” all-staff email addressed to executive chairman Michael Miller, commercial finance manager Emily Townsend says News Corp papers, including the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, have been spreading misinformation to focus on arson as the cause of the bushfires, says the Guardian. She wrote: “I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies.” (News Corp papers have been accused of placing undue emphasis on issues such as arson and hazard reduction in a way that diverts attention from climate change’s role in creating longer, more severe fire seasons, the Guardian notes.) DeSmog UK takes a look at the climate sceptics “spreading misinformation” about the bushfires. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that “West Australian iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest has moved to clarify his stance on climate change after pointing to arson as a big contributor to this summer’s devastating fire season.” After saying at a press conference that while global warming was part of the reason for the devastation, “the biggest part” was arson, Forrest issued a statement saying he “unequivocally” believed climate change was real and he accepted the warming of our planet was a “primary cause of the catastrophic events”.

Meanwhile, there is continuing coverage of the fires themselves, with BBC News reporting that two of Australia’s bushfires were expected to “merge into a so-called ‘mega blaze’” yesterday evening. This merging fire is expected at the border of New South Wales and Victoria and has been feared for days, the outlet says. The Daily Telegraph reports that “Australian authorities urged another mass evacuation across the heavily populated southeast on Thursday as a return of hot weather fanned huge bushfires threatening several towns and communities”. In a televised briefing, Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews told viewers: “If you receive instructions to leave, then you must leave…That is the only way to guarantee your safety.” In total, Australia urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes yesterday, says Reuters. Sky News reports that NASA satellite imagery shows that a third of Australia’s Kangaroo Island has been “ravaged after bushfires”. NASA said this is “not only just a major tragedy for the island but an ecological tragedy as well”. Reuters reports that alpine resorts have been using winter snowmaking machines to blast ice-cold water onto dry ski slopes as the bushfires threaten to engulf the Snowy Mountains region. Thomson Reuters Foundation reports that the CO2 emissions from the fires has almost matched that of the Amazon fires last year. Australia’s bushfires – from September to 6 January – have emitted 370m tonnes of CO2, according to the European Union’s ECMWF Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service – compared to 392m from the Amazon. Carbon Brief has produced a chart to highlight the scale of these emissions. Reuters has an article and a graphic on the size of Australia’s fires.

Finally, celebrity appeals have continued to raise money towards tackling the fires and coping with their impacts. Reuters reports on donations from Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and the A$1 million ($686,000) raised from the auction of Australian cricketer Shane Warne’s prized “baggy green” cap. Current Australian cricketers have also visited areas devastated by the bushfires, reports Reuters, describing the scenes as “absolutely mind-blowing”.

The National Trust has pledged to become “net-zero carbon” by 2030, reports BusinessGreen, as it announced “a raft of initiatives to meet the goal including planting new woodland one and half times the size of Manchester”. The outlet continues: “The charity will also invest in renewable energy, lock up carbon by maintaining peat bogs, and seek to cut emissions across its operations, director general Hilary McGrady announced today in an event to mark the organisation’s 125th anniversary.” The Trust plans to spend “about £90m creating 18,000 hectares of new woodland, increasing the proportion of its land covered in trees from 10% to 17% by 2030”, says the Times, which notes that “the planned increase is based on advice from the Committee on Climate Change”. The paper also says that “more than half the land that will be converted to woodland is used for grazing sheep and cattle”. McGrady says the charity “will certainly not be asking farmers to move. But there will be a change in some of the upland landscape that we own”, reports that Daily Telegraph. The Press Association and MailOnline also have the story.

Meanwhile, the British Museum has warned that treasures of prehistoric civilisation are being lost to climate change as the Arctic permafrost thaws, reports the Financial Times. A new exhibition, “Arctic: culture and climate”, will bring together the largest collection of artefacts from the region ever seen in the UK, the FT says. The subject of the melting Arctic region has raised questions over the show’s lead financial supporter – the investment bank Citi, says the FT, as it “has helped to finance oil and gas projects around the world”. In addition, the Daily Telegraph reports the “director of the British Museum has denied hypocrisy for accepting BP funding” as it prepares its new Arctic exhibition.

BlackRock, the world’s largest investor, has joined an influential pressure group calling for the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions, reports the Guardian. The paper continues: “The US investment firm has signed up to Climate Action 100+, a group of investors managing assets worth more than $35tn (£27tn), that pressures fossil fuel producers and other companies responsible for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions to show how they will reduce carbon dioxide pollution.” The decision comes after the firm “was accused of failing to match rhetoric with action”, says the Financial Times: “The firm has typically opted to work directly with companies through its internal ‘stewardship’ team rather than use the clout of its voting power. That stance has exposed it to criticism, including from former US vice-president Al Gore and Christopher Hohn of hedge fund TCI, who said last month that ‘major asset managers such as BlackRock have been shown to be full of greenwash’.” A BlackRock spokesperson told Reuters that “evidence of the impact of climate risk on investment portfolios is building rapidly” and reiterated past comments the company will accelerate its talks with corporate executives on climate risk. BusinessGreen also has the story.

The bushfires in Australia “should be the moment when governments finally began urgent efforts to stave off climate catastrophe”, writes economist and New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman, “but the world isn’t rational”. In fact, he says, “Australia’s anti-environmentalist government seems utterly unmoved as the nightmares of environmentalists become reality”. These political reactions “are more terrifying than the fires themselves”, Krugman writes: “If a nation in flames isn’t enough to produce a consensus for action – if it isn’t even enough to produce some moderation in the anti-environmentalist position — what will? The Australia experience suggests that climate denial will persist come hell or high water – that is, through devastating heatwaves and catastrophic storm surges alike.” So “if climate denial and opposition to action are immovable even in the face of obvious catastrophe”, the only option for “avoiding the apocalypse” is for climate action”to offer immediate benefits to large numbers of voters”, Krugman argues. This is because “policies that seem to require widespread sacrifice – such as policies that rely mainly on carbon taxes – would be viable only with the kind of political consensus we clearly aren’t going to get.”

In other commentary around the fires, an editorial in the Economist warns that other countries are just as at risk from wildfires as Australia. It says: “You might think that Australia is particularly vulnerable to forest fires. But that would be a mistake. Many other countries share the same conditions that have set Australia ablaze, physically and politically, including similar terrain and a leadership that has yet to wake up fully to the new reality that climate change is creating.” A second piece in the Economist looks at why the Australian government was “so ill-prepared” for the fires. Lastly, Brisbane Times columnist John Birmingham says that the media bears “a heavy responsibility for the dozens of human lives lost, and the near-incalculable damage to the fragile ecology of this sunburnt country”. He continues: “I’m not thinking here of the shameless grifters peddling denial and culture war as a business model. I mean the hard-working, professional news gatherers and the platforms – the papers, news shows and websites – they run”. The “denial of climate change is not a ‘side’ in an argument”, Birmingham says: “Every time a legitimate journalist or editor or producer calls on a denier ‘to put the other side’ of the climate change case they make it so much more likely another half-billion kangaroos and wallabies and koalas will burn next year, and dozens more people along with them.”

Recent studies point to an increase of sea salt aerosol (SSA) emissions with temperature, suggesting that SSA may lower climate sensitivity. This paper assess the impact of both a strong and weak temperature response of SSA emissions on the climate sensitivity. They find that the stronger temperature dependence improves the simulation of marine aerosol optical depth sensitivity to temperature and lowers Transient Climate Response by around ‐0.12C and Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity by around ‐0.5C. Stronger radiative feedbacks are dominated by more negative low‐level clouds feedbacks in the Northern Hemisphere, which are partly offset by more positive feedbacks in the Southern Hemisphere associated with a weaker Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

India’s commitment to Paris Climate Change Agreement through its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) will require the energy system to gradually move away from fossil fuels. The more stringent targets of 2C and well below 2C would impose further challenges and uncertainties for the Indian energy systems. This paper assesses how India’s energy system would have to change up to 2050 in order to meet carbon mitigation commitments while achieving the national sustainable development goals. They find that meeting targets would require (a) coal-based power plants older than 30 years under NDC and older than 20 years for deeper CO2 mitigation will be stranded before their lifetime, (b) an increase in renewables of up to 225–280 GW by 2050 will require battery storage with improved integrated smart grid infrastructure, © growth in nuclear to 27–32 GW by 2050 is dependent on nuclear supply availability, (d) a gradual shift towards electrification in industry, building, and transport sectors, and (e) installation of CCS technologies in power and industry sectors. Cumulative investments of up to 6–8 trillion USD will be required during 2015–2030 to implement the actions required to transform the current energy systems in India.