The UK’s Labour government has defended its net-zero policies following former prime minister Tony Blair saying in a new report that limiting fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”, reports BBC News. (More accurately, Blair states that “phasing out fossil fuels in the short term…is doomed to fail”, rather than at all, as highlighted in a factcheck by Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans on social media.) Blair “argued the climate change debate had become ‘irrational’ and people in rich countries no longer wanted to make financial sacrifices”, BBC News continues. Blair added that such sacrifices had “a ‘minimal’ effect on global emissions” and a public backlash could “derail the whole agenda”, according to coverage in the Financial Times trailed on its frontpage. Following the backlash from the release of the report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the former prime minister was “forced” to “row back from his criticism of the government’s net-zero strategy after furious Labour politicians warned he had given a boost to Tory and Reform sceptics on the eve of the local elections”, reports the Guardian in an article featured on its frontpage. Covering the reversal, the Daily Mail reports the TBI “insisted it ‘supported’ the government’s 2050 green energy target, the day after he said that such policies were ‘irrational’”. Climate experts and politicians have rounded on Blair for sending the “wrong message”, the Guardian reports. Downing Street has rejected the claim of “hysteria” in the net-zero debate from Blair, reports the Independent in a story trailed on the frontpage. Sky News reports on environment secretary Steve Reed defending the government’s climate policies in the wake of the report. Relatedly, the Daily Mail reports that Labour’s “biggest union backer” Unite has “attacked” net-zero in a frontpage article.

According to climate advocacy group Climate Power, US president Donald Trump’s cuts to the clean-energy industry have cost 20,000 jobs and threatened almost $70bn in project investments, reports the Financial Times. Almost 100 projects have been cancelled, delayed or threatened since Trump was elected in November, “potentially reversing gains in manufacturing employment under the Biden administration”, it continues. Additionally, a further 40,000 clean energy jobs are under threat, as they are attached to companies that have been previously awarded federal grants or loans that the Trump administration wants to cut, the article adds. “The realised and potential job losses are spread across the solar, wind, hydrogen, critical minerals and battery manufacturing industries – with the already cancelled or threatened projects representing more than $71.24bn of investment”, according to the FT. 

In other US news, Ukraine has signed an agreement giving the US access to the country’s vast mineral resources, reports the Washington Post. (Details about the deal’s content remain very limited.) This “finalise[s] a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia”, it adds. Trump wants to “fast-track US coastal projects to find and extract minerals from the ocean floor that can be used for defense, energy and other industrial applications”, reports Axios. Finally, a storm has killed three people and left 500,000 customers without power in Pennsylvania, reports the Associated Press. Pittsburgh mayor Ed Gainey told a press conference on Wednesday that the storm “was tough on our city”, according to the New York Times.

Spain’s environment minister has warned against blaming Monday’s blackouts across the Iberian peninsula on the country’s increasing use of renewable energy, the Guardian. Sara Aagesen has defended the “reliability of the national grid and promised a ‘complete audit’ to establish the causes of the outage”, it continues. (Carbon Brief has examined what is currently known – and not yet known – about the blackouts, as well as how the media reacted.) Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez has come under fire for the blackout, reports the Financial Times. Sánchez appeared before parliament “to explain the causes of this week’s catastrophic electricity blackout, as political recriminations mount over one of Europe’s biggest-ever power outages”, it adds. Spain’s grid operator REE has denied that “dependence on solar power was to blame for the country’s worst blackout”, reports Reuters. Additionally, the operator’s chairwoman Beatriz Corredor has “made a staunch defence of the company’s performance and refused to take any responsibility for the historic blackout”, reports Bloomberg. Across Spain and Portugal, officials are now “trying to determine the cause of an outage that left tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula without power”, reports the New York Times.

China’s recent announcement of the “basic rules” for the “national electricity auxiliary services market” marks a “key move” in building the national unified electricity market’s “1+N” policy framework, reports China Electric Power News. The outlet says this completes the “rules for the three major [electricity] trading categories”, namely, medium-long term trading market, spot market and auxiliary services. (See yesterday’s Daily Briefing for more on China’s electricity auxiliary services.)

Meanwhile, China’s solar sector continues to “plunge deeper into the red”, with the country’s five leading solar manufacturers reporting a total loss of more than 8bn yuan ($1.1bn) in the first quarter of the year, compared to a combined loss of loss than 2bn yuan ($280m) in the whole of last year, Bloomberg reports. Reuters also covers the story under the headline: “China’s solar industry remains in red as trade war adds to problems.”

Elsewhere, the China Meteorological Administration has started working on an “assessment report on extreme weather events and adaptation” for 2025, business news outlet Jiemian reports, adding that the report will propose “practical directions for future disaster risk management” and “enhance China’s capacity in climate risk management and climate change adaptation”. China Economic Times publishes an article by Zhou Hongchun from the Development Research Centre of the State Council, saying that China should promote the “high-level opening-up” of the national carbon-trading market (ETS) to the world. CnEVPost, a Shanghai-based electric vehicle (EV) news outlet, reports that sales of China’s “new-energy vehicles” (NEVs), including EVs and plug-in hybrids, reached 728,000 units across the period 1-27 April, a 24% year-on-year increase, but down 10% from the same period last month.

Finally, state-run newspaper China Daily publishes an editorial under the headline: “US energy strategy holds world hostage.” The newspaper argues that the US has “ditched clean energy policies and embraced fossil fuels”, while China pledged that “no matter how the international situation changes, it will not slow down its efforts to address climate change”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) publishes an article under the headline: “Global trade war: tensions spill into WTO session over China overcapacity, Trump tariffs.”

The UK government has announced that almost all new homes will be fitted with solar panels within the next two years, reports the Times in a story featured on its frontpage. The newspaper adds: “The change was estimated to add about £3,300 to the cost of building a semi-detached or terraced house and just under £4,000 for a detached property. However, it was expected that new homeowners would recoup the extra costs within four years, with an average three-bedroom semi-detached saving more than £1,000 a year on energy bills. The move comes despite pressure from developers to make solar panels optional over claims that the technology was not suitable for all new properties. Two in five new-builds are fitted with solar panels today.” The Daily Telegraph and Independent also cover the story.

Elsewhere, Norway’s energy minister Terje Aasland has told the Daily Telegraph in a frontpage story that the country will “never turn its back” on the North Sea “as Britain has done”. The country has a “totally different view” to the UK on oil and gas, according to Aasland. [The UK’s north sea reserves are already in decline having peaked in 1999, as reported previously by Carbon Brief.] The newspaper quotes him saying: “We want to develop [the North Sea] for the long-term, because the oil and gas industry and the service industry is really important. It saves jobs and creates a lot of value for Norwegian society. I think in the UK, the oil and gas industry has contributed in just the same way – until now.”

Meanwhile, a new study from Green Alliance has found climate change is already costing families in England £233 a year, reports BusinessGreen. The Times covers a survey by EY which has found that three in five British companies have said “rising and unstable” energy costs are undermining growth. The Daily Telegraph reports that “household energy bills will rise to pay for a net-zero upgrade of Britain’s regional power grids”. Finally, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has found that electric vehicles (EVs) could help power homes if the UK were to suffer a blackout, reports the Press Association. Using 60% of an EV battery would provide nearly six days of electricity to a typical UK home, it adds.

An editorial in the Guardian argues that support for the “green transition” remains “strong”, despite former prime minister Tony Blair’s “ill-conceived contribution to the climate debate”. A report from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) “suggested that governments should dial down efforts to limit the use of fossil fuels in the short term, or risk alienating voters allegedly put off by the ‘irrationality’ and cost of green policies”, it explains. Remarks from the report were met with “jubilation by the Conservative party and Reform, which have been working overtime to try to turn net-zero targets into a Brexit-style dividing line”, it adds. However, “global backing for a rapid green transition remains overwhelming” and polls in the UK continue to show support for net-zero targets, the Guardian argues. To capitalise on this “Labour needs to lean in rather than take a step back”, the article concludes, and in the meantime a “period of silence from Sir Tony on this subject would now be most welcome”.

Elsewhere in the UK media, there is a range of other comment pieces focused on the TBI report. An editorial in the Times argues that Blair is “right to caution government on net-zero”. In a post on SubStack, climate campaigner Joss Garman sets out five reasons he mostly agrees with Blair. Columnist Zoe Williams questions how Blair was ever considered progressive in the Guardian. An editorial in the Independent argues that Blair was right to provoke a “heated argument” on net-zero policies as these are “important, transcendent matters and have to be right”. 

Meanwhile, the UK’s climate-sceptic media uses the report to continue their attacks on net-zero. The Daily Telegraph carries several comment pieces discussing the TBI report, including letters to the editor targeting the “fallacy at the heart of net-zero”.  Senior feature writer Ed Cumming argues that the “rivalry” between Blair and Miliband could prove to be the latter’s “downfall”. Henry Hill, the deputy editor of ConHome, writes in the Daily Telegraph that “Blair has finally done Britain a favour”. The paper’s Scottish editor Alan Cochrane warns that “Scottish Labour needs to heed Blair to beat SNP”. (In a twist, the Daily Telegraph also has former Labour MP Tom Harris arguing that “Miliband has a shot at becoming PM”.) An editorial in the Daily Mail argues that “green Ed must go”. In the Daily Express, Lois Perry, Europe director of a notorious US climate-sceptic thinktank called the Heartland Institute, calls for Starmer to “prove you want to put UK first and sack mad Ed Miliband now”. Daily Mail columnist Stephen Glover uses the TBI report to call on the government to “sack the most dangerous man in Britain before the lights go out”, referring to Miliband. Climate-sceptic commentator Ross Clark list Miliband’s “crimes against the economy” in the Daily Mail. Finally, the Sun carries a comment piece from climate-sceptic columnist Rod Liddle on “why net-zero hits Brits in the pocket”. And the Daily Mail carries a comment piece by Louis Bacon arguing that the Drax “greenwashing scandal utterly shames Britain”.

Following the blackout earlier this week in Spain and Portugal, “governments must invest in electricity resilience alongside the green transition”, argues an editorial in the Financial Times. While power has now been restored across the Iberian peninsula, “the scenes of gridlock and confusion will not be quickly forgotten” and “underscore how advanced economies also cannot afford to be complacent about their electricity resilience”, the article continues. As countries shift away from traditional generators, such as coal and gas, which were able to “provide inertia”, there is a “greater need to focus on resilience”, it adds, although it notes that blackouts still happen in “systems dominated by gas, coal and nuclear generation, due to technical faults”. The cause of the blackout is yet to be determined, with some trying to pin the blackout on renewables, but the FT argues that a “return to dirty fuels is not the answer”. It concludes: “The world is getting hotter and needs to rely more on renewable energy to provide electricity. But, as it does so, it must also ensure its power systems have all the components needed to keep the electrons flowing.” 

Relatedly, Reuters energy columnist Ron Bousso says “don’t blame renewables for Spain’s power outage”. And in the Times, writer and consultant Edward Lucas suggests that the “blackouts in Spain and Portugal should alert us to the vulnerability of vital infrastructure”.

Meanwhile, science commentator Anjana Ahuja argues in the Financial Times that “the US is now a rogue state” when it comes to climate science. The Daily Telegraph’s world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard suggests that superconductors may “solve the economic alarm story of our age”. In the New York Times, columnist David Wallace-Wells says that, while “climate change urgency has declined…the green transition hasn’t”. The Guardian columnist George Monbiot writes about the BBC’s recent cancellation of a podcast about heat pumps.

Areas in 11 western US states were exposed to extreme heat, wildfire smoke or wildfire burn zones for an average of 32 days each year between 2006 and 2020, according to a new study. The researchers use census tract-level data to assess exposure to these three “heat-related, climate-driven hazards”. They find that simultaneous exposure to extreme heat and wildfire smoke increased over the study period. Areas with the most exposure to all three hazards had populations with “disproportionately” more people who are older, disabled, living in poverty and non-white.

A new study finds that the richness of Arctic plant species has not changed directionally over the past four decades, despite the Arctic experiencing the “greatest rates of warming on Earth”. The researchers analyse more than 40,000 records of 490 vascular plant species to assess changes in species richness and composition between 1981-2022. They find that species richness was greater at lower latitudes and warmer sites, but find no indication that richness changed directionally over time. Species turnover was “widespread”, however, with almost 60% of sites gaining and/or losing species.