The government’s independent climate advisers have warned that carbon emissions from the aviation industry must not rise if the UK is to meet its legally-binding climate change targets, Unearthed reports. In a letter to Transport Secretary Chris Grayling last week, the chair and deputy chair of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) wrote: “Aviation emissions at 2005 levels in 2050 means other sectors must reduce emissions by more than 80%, and in many cases will likely need to reach zero. Higher levels of aviation emissions in 2050 must not be planned for, since this would place an unreasonably large burden on other sectors.” The Guardian also reports on the CCC comments and protests by environmental campaigners, including spray-chalking SNP headquarters in Scotland and staging a “die-in” inside Westminster. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is expected to agree on proposals giving airlines credit for using crude oil as well as aviation fuels from renewable sources like corn, provided they meet the lower-emissions criteria of ICAO’s 2016 climate deal.

In a world first, Siemens is opening a £1.5m pilot project using ammonia as a new form of energy storage, the Guardian reports. The firm hopes to prove that ammonia can be as useful as more established storage technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries, in managing the variable output of wind and solar power. While the demonstration scheme, based in Oxfordshire, is relatively small in terms of storage and power generation capacity, Siemens hopes to establish that the concept can work and prove useful.

The leaders of 14 of the UK’s largest and most polluted cities are set to call on the government today to ban the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2030, the Times reports. The move would phase out conventional cars and vans then years earlier than planned in a bid to cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The leaders are also calling for a scrappage scheme to help drivers switch to cleaner vehicles. However, the AA criticised the proposal, saying that such a rapid ban was unrealistic, the Times adds.

The UK’s reliance on importing French power has increased by almost a quarter this year, the Telegraph reports. Wholesale energy prices in Britain are around a fifth higher than they were this time last year. Jamie Stewart, the ICIS Energy analyst, told the Telegraph: “French nuclear plants have been far more reliable this year to date than last year which has kept a firm lid on French power prices.”

EDF Energy has agreed to pay out £350,000 for failing to fit enough smart meters in customers’ houses, the Guardian reports. The fine is the first time an energy supplier has been penalised by Ofgem for missing domestic smart meter targets. EDF said it had since caught up and was on track to hit this year’s target. Energy Live News also has the story. Separately, the Times reports that British Gas has been rebuked by Ofgem for forcibly installing an unusually high number of pre-payment meters in homes. The regulator said suppliers must use such forcible installations only as a “last resort”. And Energy Live News reports that the government is extending its Warm Home Discount scheme to apply to smaller energy suppliers that it currently does. By 2021, energy firms with more than 150,000 customer accounts will be obliged to offer the discount.

Pension fund trustees are set to be given new powers to dump shares in oil, gas and coal companies in favour of long-term investment in green and “social impact” opportunities, the Guardian reports. Government proposals published on Monday aim to give funds more confidence to divest from fossil fuels in danger of becoming “stranded assets”, as long as their members’ agree. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paper says: “Our proposed regulations are intended to reassure trustees that they can (and indeed should) take account of financially material risks, whether these stem from investee firms’ traditional financial reporting, or from broader risks covered in non-financial reporting or elsewhere.”

Canada and Argentina have announced plans to conduct peer reviews of their public finance of fossil fuels, Climate Home News reports. In a joint statement, both countries emphasised the need to phase out “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies and said they have made significant progress on this. Observers have previously said that Canada’s pledge to spend $3.5bn to nationalise the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline counted as a huge new subsidy. Last year, Carbon Brief published a detailed explainer on the challenge of defining fossil fuel subsidies.

“Over the past 10 years, energy utilities across the world have delivered average cumulative shareholder returns of just 1%,” writes Nick Butler in the Financial Times. Meanwhile performance of a global index of overall corporate performance showed a gain of 55%. The figures come from a new survey looked at 50 publicly listed utilities. “What has caused this chronic underperformance?,” asks Butler. “There seem to be two answers. The first, highlighted by McKinsey, is the failure of individual companies to adapt to a rapidly changing market structure. The growth of renewables, backed in many cases by subsidies and given protected shares of the market, has not only changed the energy mix but also encouraged distributed production.” The second, he adds, is the targeting of utilities by governments looking for someone to blame for policy failures – as in the UK. “Never mind that the last major review by the competition authorities focused on tariff structures and the need to make switching between suppliers easier rather than any suggestion of price fixing.”

Currently, 844 million people – about one in nine of the planet’s population – lack access to clean, affordable water within half an hour of their homes, writes Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey. Ina piece looking at concerns that the world is rapidly using up its water supplies, Harvey notes that: “Climate change will not only mean more droughts, but also more frequent floods. These can be devastating to agriculture and cities, especially coastal cities already under threat from rising sea levels and stronger storm surges.”

In a piece looking at BP’s recently released Statistical Review of World Energy, David Roberts zooms in a chart showing how fuel shares in electricity generation have changed over the past decade. “In 1998, coal represented 38% of global power generation. In 2017, it represented… 38% of global power generation,” he writes. In electricity, a sector that absorbs 40% of the world’s primary energy and produces more than a third of its emissions, the past 20 years have been running to stay still. No net decarbonisation progress has been made… That’s not going to cut it to avoid catastrophic climate change.’ Meanwhile, a commentary in the Wall Street Journal argues the social benefits of fossil fuels far outweigh the costs.

A new study aims to address the lack of crucial data on indoor temperatures during deadly heatwaves – a particular issue in non air-conditioned homes. The “Harlem Heat Project” – a unique consortium of media and community groups – distributed hand-constructed sensors in people’s homes in northern Manhattan. The results show “that indoor temperatures are far more stable than outdoor temperatures, with the indoor diurnal average typically above the outdoor average”, the researchers say. Using weather information and a statistical model, indoor temperatures can be forecast a day in advance with useful accuracy, they add.