UN secretary general António Guterres has warned that it could “run out of cash by July…as the organisation continues to tackle a financial crisis largely fueled by overdue US payments”, reports Bloomberg. It quotes a letter from Guterres to member states saying that the body is facing “imminent financial collapse”. The Associated Press says the letter calls for UN financial rules to be “overhauled or [for] all 193 member nations pay their dues – a message likely directed at the US and the billions it owes”. It explains that the US “now owes $2.196bn to the UN’s regular budget” and another $1.8bn for peacekeeping operations.

Reuters says: “Guterres has repeatedly spoken about the organisation’s worsening liquidity crisis, but this is his starkest warning yet and it comes as its main contributor the US is retreating from multilateralism on numerous fronts.” It adds: “US president Donald Trump has described the UN as having ‘great potential’, but said it is not fulfilling that and he has launched a Board of Peace which some fear could undermine the older international body.” Politico reports: “Trump, in a brief phone call with Politico, cast himself as the saviour for a UN in danger of financial collapse, touting his ability to get members to pay unpaid dues. But he declined [on] Sunday to say whether the US would make good on the billions of dollars it owes the international body.” [Last November, Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged to “cover the gap” at the UNFCCC, the UN’s climate change body, left by the absence of a US contribution, according to the Financial Times.] 

A federal judge has ruled that the US energy department “violated the law when secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who rejected the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming”, reports the New York Times. It says the report, which “downplayed the dangers of warming”, was later cited to “justify a plan to repeal the endangerment finding, a landmark scientific determination that serves as the legal foundation for regulating climate pollution”. The newspaper explains that a 1972 law “does not allow agencies to recruit or rely on secret groups for the purposes of policymaking” and that the judge found the department “did not deny that it had failed to hold open meetings or assemble a balance of viewpoints, as the law requires”. [Carbon Brief comprehensively factchecked the error-strewn report produced by the secret panel.] 

Reuters says of the ruling: “A US federal court on Friday ruled the Department of Energy violated the law when it formed a climate science advisory group, potentially putting its forthcoming final proposal to repeal a key climate regulation at risk.” The newswire adds: “The endangerment finding repeal is under final review at the White House. It was initially supposed to be released late last year.” The Guardian reports on how “Trump’s EPA rollbacks could harm our air and water – and worsen global heating”.

MORE ON US

• The Financial Times: “Ford has held talks with electric vehicle maker Xiaomi over a partnership that would pave the way for Chinese carmakers to gain a foothold in the US, according to four people familiar with the talks.”
• Heatmap News: “The Trump administration is now delaying renewable projects it thinks are ugly.”
• Vox: “More homes [in the US] may be in danger of wildfires than previously thought as wildfire threats grow…A new generation of models are revealing where fire hazards were underestimated.”
• Inside Climate News reports on geothermal under a headline calling it the “promising renewable energy that Democrats and Republicans actually agree on”.
• The Times of India looks at how Trump “got it completely wrong” when he claimed that the recent US winter storm showed global warming was a “con”.

China’s energy-sector investments saw “rapid growth” in 2025, with investment in “key” projects exceeding 3.5tn yuan ($500bn) for the first time, reports energy news outlet International Energy Net, covering a National Energy Administration (NEA) press conference. An NEA official said investment in “new business models” in China’s energy transition accelerated, with investment in onshore wind rising 50% year-on-year and “doubling” in key new-energy storage and hydrogen projects, it adds. The official noted China’s renewable-sourced power generation exceeded the EU’s total electricity consumption, reports the Shanghai-based Paper. Another NEA official said China’s total installed capacity of “green hydrogen” exceeded 250,000 tonnes a year, double the 2024 figure, says finance news outlet EastMoney. International Energy Net cites a third NEA official saying China’s “green electricity certificate (GEC)” market “demonstrated robust growth in both volume and value” in 2025. Industry news outlet BJX News publishes the full press conference transcript.

MORE ON CHINA

• China will “refine” capacity pricing for coal power and establish similar mechanisms for gas power, pumped storage and new-energy storage, reports Xinhua. Li Peng, manager at State Power Investment Corporation’s Energy Research Institute, says in BJX News that the new policy will “safeguard [the] survival” of these industries.
• Chinese premier Li Qiang told UK prime minister Keir Starmer that China and the UK should “deepen cooperation” in clean-energy industries and “safeguard multilateralism and free trade”, says Xinhua.
• EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra says countries must resist China’s pull in clean technologies, reports Bloomberg, adding cooperation with China is a “mistake”. The Chinese state-supporting Global Times newspaper says Hoekstra’s position could “undermine Europe’s own climate ambitions”. 
• NEA head Wang Hongzhi has discussed “deepening cooperation in the energy sector” with Russian energy minister Sergey Tsivilyov, according to International Energy Net.
• International Energy Net says China’s efforts to curb “involution” have made steady progress, with polysilicon and wafer prices rising by 52% and 35%, respectively.
• China Coal Market reports that coal-fired power units “effectively shouldered” peak-load support and electricity supply this winter amid nationwide cold waves.

There is widespread coverage of the news that US president Donald Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh as the next governor of the US Federal Reserve. Inside Climate News says: “In a speech last year to a group of financial leaders that was broadly critical of the Fed, Kevin Warsh called climate change a ‘politically charged’ issue that the bank would do better to avoid.” The Associated Press carries a profile of Warsh that says he has, in recent months, “become much more critical of the Fed, calling for ‘regime change’ and assailing [current chair Jay] Powell for engaging on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion, which Warsh said are outside the Fed’s mandate”.

An editorial in the Washington Post says Warsh is “right that the central bank has lost its focus”. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal says “he is the right choice for a central bank that needs reform after a generation of exceeding its proper monetary remit”. Another Associated Press article says senator Elizabeth Warren, the highest-ranking Democrat on a committee that has the power to approve or reject Warsh’s appointment, “accused Warsh of reshaping his views to appease Trump ahead of his nomination”.

In a speech unveiling India’s union budget on Sunday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated $2.2bn to “ramp up the deployment” of carbon capture, utilisation and storage [CCUS] technologies, reports Bloomberg. It adds that the plan aims to mitigate emissions from “five heavily polluting sectors” over the next five years: power, steel, cement, refineries and chemicals. The budget announcement comes “[a]t a time when high-emission Indian industries are staring at the risk of facing the EU’s carbon border tax”, writes the Times of India. 

From establishing “dedicated rare-earth corridors” in India’s coastal and mineral-rich states to “customs duty exemptions”, the budget “mark[s] a sharper push to build India’s critical minerals ecosystem”, reports the Indian Express. These corridors “are intended to integrate mining, separation, processing, research and manufacturing, reducing India’s dependence on imported rare-earth value chains”, explains Down to Earth. The Hindu Businessline notes that “over 45%” of India’s rare-earth mineral imports are from China. Sitharaman’s budget also hikes allocations to India’s coal ministry by a “whopping 640%”, according to the Economic Times. Last week, India classified coking coal as a “critical mineral” to boost exploration and supply, per another Bloomberg story, “removing regulatory barriers including mandatory public consultations”. 

In a comment piece for the Indian Express, climate scientist Dr Anjal Prakash observes that the budget “remains mitigation-oriented and nowhere near the $2.5tn needed by 2030 to shield India against climate change”. Another Down to Earth story notes that Sitharaman’s speech “did not have a single direct mention of climate change”. It quotes climate activist Harjeet Singh, who says: “With this budget, India has decisively shifted focus to the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the energy transition…[b]ut while we are building a strong green industry, we are leaving the human strategy fragile.”

Reuters reports that EU member states will “demand that Britain contributes financially to poorer EU member states’ development as part of any deal to re-link the two sides’ energy markets, according to EU documents and diplomats”. The newswire explains that the UK and EU agreed last year to start negotiations on UK participation in the EU electricity market. It continues: “Industry says such a move would remove hundreds of millions of euros in annual costs that Brexit added to energy trade between Britain and the 27-nation EU. But a dispute over funding could complicate the energy negotiations that are due to start in coming months, diplomats said.” The Daily Express carries a comment by Julian Jessop of the right-leaning thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs, claiming, without evidence, that rejoining the EU’s emissions trading system would “raise costs”.

MORE ON UK

• The Press Association says the UK government is to decide “soon” on whether to allow Chinese wind turbine maker Mingyang to build a factory in Scotland. BBC News reports: “Trade minister Chris Bryant said the government had to be sure the investment in the Highland port [Ardersier] was ‘safe and secure’.”
• The Guardian reports on how “climate crisis has reshaped Britain’s flood risk” and another Guardian piece looks at flood impacts on wildlife. BBC News reports on “how winter storms are rapidly reshaping our coastline” and another BBC News piece asks if “river restorations [could] be key to easing floods”.
• The Times: “Delayed shop and office energy plans ‘are wholly unrealistic’.”
• The Times reports on a “breakthrough moment for electric cars”, with another Times article asking “what we can learn from Norway’s electric car revolution”. The Sunday Times says “Britain is best for an electric car discount”.
• In coverage trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph says “as many as 40 backbenchers” are opposing the weakening of environmental regulations to speed the construction of new nuclear plants.
• The Daily Mail devotes a surreal double-page spread in its print edition to “deadly” LED streetlights that it says are “part of Labour’s crusade towards net-zero”. [To take one example, Surrey County Council – which was under Conservative control until 2025 – decided to start rolling out LED streetlights in 2018 to cut costs and “minimise light pollution”.]

The Guardian reports: “Fossil fuel companies could be forced to pay some of the price of their damage to the climate,and the ultra-rich subjected to a global wealth tax, if new tax rules are agreed under the UN. Negotiations on a planned global tax treaty will resume at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday, with dozens of countries supporting stronger rules that would make polluters pay for the impact of their activities.” It says the talks over the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation “could be adopted as soon as the end of next year if countries can iron out details”.

A team of scientists is hoping to place instruments into the water below the Thwaites glacier in the Antarctic, reports the New York Times, adding that they plan to use “a drill that uses hot water to punch through ice”. The newspaper describes Thwaites as “one of Antarctica’s largest and fastest-shrinking glaciers”. It adds: “Scientists fear that as Thwaites’s floating ice erodes and weakens, the rest of the glacier could start sliding quickly from the land to the ocean, adding to global sea-level rise.” The Atlantic reports under a headline “The ‘Doomsday glacier’ could flood the Earth. Can a 50-mile wall stop it?” A separate New York Times article reports on melting ice in Greenland, at the Earth’s other pole: “New studies show how algae grows on ice and snow, creating ‘dark zones’ that exacerbate melting in the consequential region.”

An editorial in the Washington Post says that US president Donald Trump is “protecting the coal industry from market forces, driving up utility bills for Americans”. It continues: “On energy policy, the administration’s most obvious sin has been picking losers. It has attempted to halt construction for offshore wind developments, even some that were nearly complete and suffocated massive solar projects with red tape. As the nation clamors for more electricity, this oppositional attitude makes no policy sense. Less covered, but equally concerning, is the administration’s penchant for picking winners. The Energy Department quietly issued emergency orders in late December requiring four coal plants to keep operating that had been scheduled to retire.” It concludes: “This is what it looks like when ideology drives energy policy. Keeping money-losing plants online skews the market, making it harder for companies to invest in the infrastructure of the future.”

The New York Times carries a feature on “three hours of free power and other ideas to lower utility bills”. It says the “Trump administration has sought to stall renewable energy projects and increase the use of coal, natural gas and oil”. The newspaper continues: “Some Republicans like Neil Chatterjee, who led the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during part of Trump’s first term, say government officials ought to embrace an all-of-the-above approach to energy. As electricity prices continue to rise, ‘solar is just going to be a cheaper alternative for residents than the bills they’re paying for their utilities’, Chatterjee said. ‘We can’t possibly do this with fossil fuels alone.’”

An editorial in the Guardian responds to the publication of a government report “thought to have been authored by intelligence chiefs, about the threat to the UK’s national security from biodiversity collapse”. It says: “Inadequate food supplies and collapsing rainforests must be recognised as national security threats – not pigeonholed as green issues.” The article praises the UK government for “largely st[icking to its guns” on climate goals, but adds that other environmental issues have been given a “lower profile”. The editorial concludes: “[A]s this report spells out, nature loss cannot be ignored any more safely than global heating can. Its message – that ‘nature is a foundation of national security’ – must be heard.”

MORE COMMENT

• Bloomberg columnist David Fickling writes about the “triple threat to the world’s food security” from climate change, groundwater depletion and trade wars.
• The Daily Telegraph continues to platform climate-sceptic comment articles with Isabel Oakshott writing misleadingly about “thriving” polar bears and the Heritage Foundation’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth promoting fossil fuels.
• For the Sunday Times, climate-sceptic columnist Jeremy Clarkson writes under the headline: “Net-zero is unhuman. Who wants to be sad?” The Sun covers Clarkson’s column, saying he described solar panels as “like an ugly wife”.
• The Times carries continued reaction to a misleading report on heat pump running costs, with an article looking at how to cut the cost of electricity. The Sunday Times similarly follows up the report by interviewing a handful of heat-pump owners. [Carbon Brief has factchecked the report’s misleading claims.]

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Simon Evans, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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