There is widespread coverage of the UAE’s decision to leave the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as the OPEC+ alliance which includes other oil producing countries such as Russia. Reuters reports that the UAE’s exit deals a “heavy blow” to OPEC and marks a “win” for Donald Trump, who has in the past accused the cartel of “ripping off the world”. The UAE, it notes, was the fourth-largest producer of OPEC+ group, which controlled nearly half the world’s oil before the Iran war. Operating outside the producer group allows the UAE ​to “fully leverage its position as a supplier of some of the world’s lowest-cost and lowest-carbon barrels”, Reuters says. CNBC says the decision will be effective from Friday. The story features on the frontpages of multiple newspapers, including the Financial Times, Times, Daily Telegraph and Guardian.

Axios says the UAE’s energy ministry stated its decision reflects the country’s “evolved energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production”. The outlet quotes Rystad’s analyst Jorge Leon saying that oil demand “nearing a peak” means that “the calculation for producers with low-cost barrels [like the UAE] is changing fast”. The Associated Press also links the UAE’s move with projections of peak oil demand. It says: “One reason for producing more now: Experts think oil consumption will peak in coming years as the world transitions to renewable energy sources.” BBC News says “one way to read the UAE’s action is as a sign of this world of reduced oil reliance…in this view, it makes sense to raise as much money from oil reserves as quickly as possible before demand craters”.

MORE ON FOSSIL FUELS

• EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has urged countries in south-east Asia not to turn to Russia for oil supplies to cope with widespread fuel shortages, reports Reuters.
• Reuters: “Europe’s jet fuel imports from Middle East stop, raising supply crunch fears.”
• The World Bank projects that energy prices will surge by 24% in 2026 if the most acute disruptions caused by the war end in May, reports Reuters.
• Petrol prices in the US rose to their “highest level in four years” as peace talks between the US and Iran appeared at an impasse, according to the New York Times.
• Bloomberg reports that rising oil prices have coincided with “surging” sales of electric vehicles (EVs), with 1.1m EVs sold in March – 2% more than the year before. Rising sales in Europe and Asia counteracted a downturn in China and the US, it says.
• Reuters: “Australian state offers first gas exploration permits in a decade.”

US clean energy installations are on track to hit “another record” this year and account for the vast majority of new power additions, despite facing policy opposition from the Trump administration, reports Bloomberg. The American Clean Power Association trade body said yesterday that the US power sector is expected to add about 60GW of solar, battery storage and wind capacity in 2026, marking a 20% increase on 50GW last year, the outlet says. The Guardian covers data from thinktank Ember which shows the US generated more electricity from renewable sources than gas in March, in a first. The newspaper adds that 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 is expected to come from solar, wind and batteries. The rollout, it says, comes as the “Trump administration’s attempts to stymie the industry have floundered in court”.

Meanwhile, there is continued coverage of the administration’s decision to block two permitted US wind energy projects from development and provide millions of dollars in refunds to the companies behind them if funds are reinvested in oil and gas. The Guardian reports that the decision came after Democratic US representatives had called the mooted agreements “outrageous and unlawful”. Politico’s E&E News says the decision was “blasted” by the Democrat governor of North Carolina Josh Stein as “senseless”. Elsewhere, Politico notes that developer Ocean Winds’ decision to return its offshore wind leases marks a “high-profile victory in [Trump’s] anti-wind campaign”. But it notes the deal “notably excluded” the lease of the SouthCoast Wind project, which Ocean Winds has “already sunk more than $600m into”. The fate of SouthCoast, it says, is a “barometer of whether permitted projects will find a pathway to completion or succumb amid growing headwinds”.

MORE ON US

• There is widespread coverage on UK newspaper frontpages of King Charles’s state visit to the US. E&E News reports that the king devoted a “portion of his speech to Congress to conservation” and the Guardian says sources reveal that he is “likely to touch on the environment in public as well as private”.
• Inside Climate News speaks to experts about the impact of Trump’s decision to fire all 22 members of the National Science Board last week.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina signed a deal with Croatia to construct a gas pipeline backed by investors connected to Trump which promises to reduce the country’s dependence on Russian supply, reports Al Jazeera. 
• Le Monde says the $1.5bn pipeline deal came on the same day that Albania signed a 20-year framework agreement worth $6bn for US liquified natural gas (LNG).

BP’s profits more than doubled in the first three months of the war, prompting accusations from campaigners that it is profiting at the expense of households, says the Press Association. The firm revealed its “underlying replacement cost profit” increased by more than 130% to $3.2bn (£2.4bn) in the first quarter of 2026, up from $1.38bn (£1.02bn) a year earlier, reports the newswire. Speaking yesterday to the House of Commons, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves said that energy firms’ profits “is exactly why” the government had extended the energy profits levy on oil and gas firms, the newswire notes. The Daily Mirror’s frontpage headline says BP’s “£2.4bn war bonus” is “blatant profiteering”. The Daily Mail reports on a tweet posted, but then deleted, by energy secretary Ed Miliband where he reportedly wrote: “Profit­ing from a crisis is mor­ally and eco­nom­ic­ally wrong. That’s why we’re tax­ing these wind­fall profits to help fund sup­port with the cost of liv­ing. And [this is] why the Tor­ies, Reform and the SNP are utterly wrong to oppose the wind­fall tax.” The paper says the tweet “was later amended ‘to make the political message clearer’ according to sources”.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on analysis of International Monetary Fund figures by climate campaign group 350.org, which found that the burden of elevated oil and gas prices will reach “about $600bn” if the strait of Hormuz “swiftly returns to normal operations” and will “surge above $1tn” if the supply disruption continues. The figures – which are “likely an underestimate” – strike a “stark” contrast with the “fortunes of US and other non-Gulf-centred petroleum companies”, the newspaper says, pointing to BP’s profits as an example. 

MORE ON UK:

• The hedge fund of Jeremy Hosking – a Reform UK donor and owner of the climate-sceptic Critic magazine – has increased its investments in fossil fuels by 54% this quarter, according to DeSmog.
• Guardian: “UK faces £35bn hit and risk of recession this year over impact of Iran war, thinktank warns.”
• The chair of NatWest was forced to defend the bank against accusations of “climate backtracking” at a “chaotic annual shareholder meeting” that was temporarily suspended owing to singing protesters, reports the Guardian.
• The Daily Telegraph covers data from the Energy and Utilities Alliance – a group that has long lobbied against heat pumps – which claims that heat pumps “could” cost £138 more a year than boilers. [For more on claims around the costs of heat pumps, read Carbon Brief’s factcheck]. 

Almost the entirety of Europe saw “above-average” temperatures last year, while wildfires burnt a “record” area and heatwaves struck “from north to south”, reports Sky News. It says the latest “European state of the climate report” from Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) revealed that 2025 brought 46C heat to Portugal, temperatures of 30C within the Arctic Circle and “20 large wildfires at the same time” in Spain. Reuters notes that Europe is ​the “world’s fastest-warming continent”. More than half of Europe was hit by drought conditions in May 2025, it says, with the year “overall” one of the three driest for ‌soil ⁠moisture since 1992. The findings, it says, show that “climate change ​is having increasingly severe consequences in Europe, at a time when some governments seek to weaken ​emissions-cutting policies over economic concerns”. Politico says the findings come as the world is bracing for a “major El Niño” event likely to send temperatures soaring higher. Euractiv and the Financial Times also cover the report.

MORE ON CLIMATE CHANGE 

• Reuters, Le Monde, Bloomberg and Agence France-Presse cover World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland data which shows that tropical forest loss eased in 2025 after reaching a record high the year before.
• Scientists and meteorologists tell Inside Climate News that destructive wildfires in the south-eastern US have been fuelled by widespread drought. Axios says the wildfires come as “much of the US is ready to burn”.
• The Guardian says climate change is one of the causes of a rise in the number of avalanche deaths in the Alps.

More than 60 governments are participating in two days of “high-level discussions” of the first global summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, reports Climate Home News. A group of 18 nations, it says, is calling for a “formal negotiation process for a binding fossil-fuel treaty” and for the progression of “new mechanisms for international cooperation and finance including an importers-exporters club, a global just transition fund and a debt resolution facility”. It says that the plenary saw government interventions interspersed with speakers representing social groups, from women to the private sector. It continues: “The result was a mix of views, with some large oil and gas-producing nations urging caution over how ditching fossil fuels could affect their economic development, while civil society groups piled on the pressure to decarbonise fast.”  

The Associated Press reports “more than 50 countries” are involved in the talks, which are not expected to result in a “binding agreement”, but are designed to “build political momentum and bring together countries willing to accelerate the transition” outside the UN climate process.

MORE ON SANTA MARTA

• The French government unveiled a plan to ditch all fossil fuels by 2050, reports Le Monde.
• The National Catholic Observer says two dozen catholic groups are in attendance at the “eagerly anticipated” conference. 

China’s top decision-making body, the Politburo, pledged yesterday to “strengthen the country’s energy security while pursuing rapid technological development and greater self-sufficiency”, reports Reuters, citing a readout released by the state news agency Xinhua. The meeting called for “improving the security of energy and resource supply” to address “external shocks and challenges”, according to Xinhua. Efforts should also be made to “strengthen the planning and construction” of electricity grids, adds the newswire. Bloomberg says the Politburo meeting was the first such meeting to focus on the economy after the Iran war started, as China began to feel the pressure from the blockade of the strait of Hormuz, which has driven up oil prices and hurt Chinese exports.

Meanwhile, China’s newly installed renewable energy capacity in 2026 will exceed 300GW, according to a new report by the China Electricity Council (CEC), reports state-run newspaper Economic Information Daily. CEC also said that by the end of this year, the combined installed capacity of wind and solar power will account for half of China’s total power generation capacity, adds the newspaper. Xinhua says “green development” has become a new driver of China’s growth. Reporter Wang Yichen writes in state-run Economic Daily that the expansion of non-fossil energy is the “core lever” for achieving China’s “dual carbon” goals, helping it fulfil its climate commitments to the world. The NDRC’s Guo Liyan writes in the party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily that green consumption and green exports will grow stronger over the next five years.

MORE ON CHINA

• Bloomberg reports China is considering a second “green sovereign bond sale” in London in the second half of 2026 as it looks to “fund climate action”.
• Reuters: “China commerce minister says reached ‘soft landing’ with EU over EV tariffs.”
• Qinzhou in southern China’s Guangxi province was battered by its highest single-day of rainfall in April, reports China Daily, although it does not mention climate change. China will focus on weather forecasting, early warning and climate adaptation to enhance its response to extreme weather, reports Xinhua.
• A commentary in Lawfare says two new reports claiming China will weaponise geoengineering offer only “thin” evidence.
• China looks to “allow renewable energy plants to supply green electricity directly” to “multiple users”, with 99 such projects totalling 34GW approved, reports Caixin.
• PV Magazine: “Chinese solar exports surge 125% in March on policy change rush, not underlying demand acceleration.”

India’s road transport ministry has proposed amendments “to formally incorporate higher ​ethanol-blended fuels”, reports Reuters, including provisions for “E85 fuel, ​a blend of 85% ethanol with petrol, and E100, which would ​allow vehicles to ​run on nearly pure ethanol”. It adds that in 2025, India ⁠”achieved its target” of 20% ethanol ​blending ⁠and is “now looking to increase blending further ⁠to ​reduce costly ​imports of petroleum products.” The draft is now open for public comments, per the newswire. At the same time, the Economic Times reports that the government is “weighing a plan” to subsidise electric cooktops, “aiming to move at least some households from LPG to solar-powered electricity usage” amid energy market disruptions. 

Elsewhere, according to Business Standard, India’s coal ministry signed its first-ever commercial coal mining agreements that allow for “underground coal gasification”, where synthetic coal gas “can be used as a feedstock” to make urea and ammonia and “reduc[e] dependence on imported fertilisers”. And India’s coal mine methane data “still has major gaps”, according to energy thinktank Ember’s new review covered by the Economic Times, with the International Energy Agency’s emissions estimates “still 67% higher” than the country’s reported figures in 2024. 

MORE ON INDIA

• A Hindustan Times editorial says that India’s new pledge to the Paris Agreement “sends a strong signal of continued faith in this mechanism, a renegade US notwithstanding”, while “upholding historical responsibility”. 
• On Monday, the district of Banda in the state of Uttar Pradesh recorded a maximum temperature of 47.6C, making it the “hottest place in the world” at the time, per the Times of India.

In the Independent, chief business commentator James Moore says Ed Miliband has become a “tabloid bogeyman – the high priest of net-zero in cabinet, driving Britain’s green transition, to the fury of some quarters”. But, Moore says, if he were “tried in the court of public opinion”, BP’s bumper profits would “make a compelling defence exhibit”. Rising oil and gas prices means the “broader direction of travel set by the energy secretary matters” , he says, continuing that the UK “must reduce its exposure to volatile fossil-fuel markets”. Moore says more oil and gas drilling is “no silver bullet”, explaining that “the [North Sea] basin is mature, costs are high and most output is sold on global markets anyway. Even a dramatic increase in production would barely dent the UK energy bill.” Moore concludes that if Miliband succeeds in reducing the country’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy, future BP windfalls driven by geopolitical shocks “may matter far less to British households”.

The Daily Mirror, meanwhile, accuses BP of “profiteering” in an editorial. It says: “The government must act. Strengthen the windfall tax. Extend it to every sector cashing in on this crisis. And use every penny to help the families footing the bill.” In other UK comment, the assistant editor of climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph Jeremy Warner says Miliband has “plumbed new depths” when he “condemned” BP’s profits. The climate-sceptic Daily Express’ personal finance editor Harvey Jones argues Ed Miliband is Labour party members “top dog” to become prime minister because they want “more tax”, “more spending” and “more windmills”. In the Times, chief business commentator Alistair Osborne says the backlash against BP’s profits is “not as bad as having [investors] hammering down the door moaning about a lack of profits”. And in the Guardian, freelance journalist Ketan Joshi writes that Spain’s continued investment in renewables – “incorrectly” blamed for an unprecedented blackout one year ago – has led to the nation being “relatively protected” from rising oil prices.

MORE COMMENT: 

• In Climate Home News, the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights Elisa Morgera says that “meaningful” progress at the Santa Marta conference, delivered “through a diplomacy of implementation, inclusion and legal accountability” can provide a “new yardstick” for other multilateral processes on climate change.

• Sydney Morning Herald economics editor Ross Gittins says the fossil-fuel industry is “using the Iran war to undermine net-zero”.
• The US ambassador to the EU writes in the Financial Times that the EU’s methane regulation could “precipitate another energy crisis at a time when Europe can ill-afford one”. 
• Javier Blas, Bloomberg columnist, says the UAE exit from OPEC “paves the way for others with ambitions to pump more oil to follow suit”. 
• Reuters energy transition columnist Gavin Maguire says global energy markets are set for a further test over the coming years as rising temperatures due to El Niño could place more strain on major power sectors.

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

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