BBC News covers comments made by the economist Lord Nicholas Stern who says that the UK has made “good progress” towards achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but getting there may need higher taxes. He tells BBC News: “We must have growth and we must drive down emissions, and it’s investment in the new technologies that’s going to get us there…I’m not arguing for delaying investment in health and education. We have to pursue those at the same time…If we have to tax a little bit more, so be it. If we have to borrow a bit more for the really tremendous investments, then we should do that.” BBC News adds: “The government is also under pressure, from some quarters, to cut taxes. However, Lord Stern says more public investment could help jobs and the environment. Lord Stern wrote a ground-breaking report in 2006 on climate change for the government, then led by prime minister Tony Blair. He delivered an updated version for former prime minister Boris Johnson in 2021. He is optimistic that a tipping point in key green technologies – including energy generation, car batteries and fertiliser manufacture – is achievable within a few years, with artificial intelligence playing a key role.”

In other UK news, the Sunday Times reports that Jeremy Hunt is “pushing to speed up planning permission for nuclear power plants and offshore wind to boost growth and bring down energy bills”. The newspaper continues: “A review ordered by the chancellor last week paved the way for easier approval of big infrastructure projects. Local objections have repeatedly delayed significant schemes and Hunt is understood to be frustrated that even when these concerns have been considered, projects are still pushed back by cumbersome planning rules…Ministers are hoping to build eight new nuclear reactors over the next decade and want to ensure that they are approved quicker than the Sizewell C project, which was confirmed last year after a seven-year planning process…Hunt has ordered an overhaul to ensure “timely decisions” on critical projects such as power stations, railways and sewage plants. The biggest solar farms could also be included. The review is expected to make recommendations that would also speed up offshore wind farms, which can take four years to get planning permission.”

Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph says that Grant Shapps, the new energy security and new-zero secretary, is “facing a Tory backlash over plans for a hydrogen levy to be added onto household bills”. It adds: “The extra green levy, which under government plans would be added onto energy bills from 2025 to fund the production of low-carbon hydrogen, has been met with anger amid concerns households will be paying for energy that they never use. It would be the first piece of legislation passed by Rishi Sunak’s new energy department, but Mr Shapps has been warned that the levy, which critics have branded as another tax, would stoke inflation, going against one of the prime minister’s five key priorities announced last month.” The Sunday Telegraph also reports that Lord Deben, who chairs the Climate Change Committee, is in a “conflict of interest row”. And the Sun says that “figures uncovered by Labour” show that former climate change czar [Alok Sharma] “spent a massive £220,000 of taxpayers’ cash on 66 lavish trips abroad”.

The Guardian reports that “experts have urged the UK to leave the controversial energy charter treaty (ECT), a secret court system that enables fossil fuel companies to sue governments for huge sums over policies that could affect future profits”. The newspaper continues: “The European Commission said this week that remaining part of the treaty would ‘clearly undermine’ climate targets and that an exit by EU countries appeared ‘inevitable’. Seven EU countries, including France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, have already said they will quit the ECT. More than 100 academics have written to the UK government, stating that ‘continued membership of the ECT will harm our prospects of limiting global warming to 1.5C because it will prolong the UK’s dependence on fossil fuels and impede the transition to renewable energy’.” The UK government has responded with a statement: “The UK is closely monitoring the situation surrounding the energy charter treaty’s modernisation process, including the positions taken by other [member nations]. We have been a strong advocate for updating the treaty to ensure it is aligned with modern energy priorities, modern international treaty practice, and international commitments on climate change.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times carry the views of Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, who tells the newspaper that ministers are taking a “big gamble” on energy prices easing further after failure to reach an agreement on increasing the UK’s gas storage capacity in time for next winter. Armitt says that, while the UK needed to move towards renewables, gas storage was needed to “boost our resilience”.

In other UK energy news, the Daily Telegraph reports that Octopus Energy is launching a heat pump the “same price or cheaper than a typical gas boiler as a price war with rival British Gas intensifies”. The newspaper adds: “Buying and installing Octopus’s new self designed heat pump will cost homeowners as little as £2,500. It comes weeks after British Gas separately announced it would fit heat pumps for as little as £2,999, kicking off a price war. Octopus currently charges £3,000 and upwards. Installing a heat pump can currently set homeowners back by between £7,000 and £13,000 when costs such as home adaptations are factored in.” Under the headline “I’ve saved £200 because of my local turbine”, BBC News covers a scheme run by Octopus Energy which offers discounts to customers in three areas with onshore wind turbines nearby.

Separately, the Financial Times says that “the City of London will ask its cluster of skyscrapers to dim their lights at night as part of a new strategy to reduce visual pollution and save energy”. And the Daily Telegraph says that Sir Jim Ratcliffe has “raised €3.5bn via his Ineos business to build the greenest chemical cracker in Europe”. It adds: “Ineos said its ‘Project One’ development was the ‘largest investment in the European chemicals sector for a generation’, with the plant having the lowest carbon footprint in Europe, three times lower than the average steam cracker and less than half that of the 10% of best performers.”

US president Joe Biden met with Brazil’s new president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday in what Reuters describes as a “reboot of relations between the hemisphere’s two largest democracies after the end of Donald Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro’s stormy rule”. The newswire says: “During the visit, Washington said it would work to provide support for a fund to protect the Amazon rainforest and Biden agreed to travel to Brazil, according to a joint statement released by Brazil, while the two leaders spoke of shared values in fighting climate change and protecting democracy against a rise in authoritarianism…Biden told Lula before a private Oval Office session between the leaders…that the two were on the ‘same page’ about the ‘climate crisis’…During the trip, Washington agreed to work with Congress to provide ‘initial support’ for the Amazon Fund started by Germany and Norway to back protection of the rainforest and sustainable development projects…The US is planning an initial donation of $50m, according to a Brazilian source.”

Separately, Reuters also reports that “deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest fell in January from a year earlier, satellite data showed on Friday, in the first monthly figures under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva”. It adds: “Preliminary satellite data collected by the government’s space research agency Inpe showed 167 square km (64 square miles) cleared in the region last month, down 61% from January 2022, the worst for the month in the eight-year series.”

BP’s decision to water down its 2030 climate goals has been criticised by an influential investment group, “even as the U-turn helped to propel the oil giant’s share price to multi-year highs”, reports the Times. Bernard Looney, BP’s chief executive, revealed last week that the energy giant is abandoning its much-vaunted plan to cut oil and gas output by 40% by 2030, saying that it would now reduce its output by a quarter. The newspaper says: “The plan drew criticism [on Friday] from Federated Hermes, which co-leads negotiations with BP over its energy transition plans on behalf of Climate Action 100+, a group of more than 700 investors with more than $68tn in assets under management. Bruce Duguid, head of stewardship at Federated, said: “In the context of a very strong financial outcome those investors with net-zero goals, including many of our clients, will be concerned at such a material change to BP’s 2030 absolute emissions reduction target.’” Reuters also covers the story.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times says BP’s head of low-carbon energy, Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, has said there is “absolutely no link” between the decision to maintain higher fossil fuel production and the lower returns available in renewable power as “she defended the group’s energy transition strategy and outlined plans to maximise profits”.

Separately, Bloomberg reports, in a “remarkable shift”, that “after advertising its efforts to produce environmentally friendly fuels from algae for over a decade, Exxon Mobil is now quietly walking away from its most heavily publicised climate solution”. The outlet adds: “Exxon confirmed that it’s pulling back on funding for algae in favour of other technologies now being worked on by its Low Carbon Solutions division. ‘At this point we have other programs that are ready for deployment,’ said Vijay Swarup, Exxon’s senior director of technology who ran algae research. ‘We need to get on the deployment curve for carbon capture, for hydrogen, for biofuels. Algae still needs some more work.’”

Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg and Latvia have warned Brussels not to “rush into major changes to the European Union’s electricity market in response to the energy crisis, calling instead for limited tweaks to the system”, reports Reuters. The newswire adds: “The European Commission is drafting a revamp of EU electricity market rules, with the aim of better cushioning consumer bills from fossil fuel price spikes and avoiding a repeat of the surge in electricity spices triggered last year by cuts to Russian gas supply. The seven countries, led by Denmark, said in a letter that Europe’s existing market design has fostered years of lower electricity prices, helped expand renewable energy, and ensured enough power was produced to meet demand and avoid shortages…The countries said there was some room for improvement, particularly in light of soaring power costs last year. But any changes must ensure the market still functions and incentivises massive investment in renewable energy, they said.” Spain has proposed a shift to more long-term, fixed-price contracts for power plants – such as contracts for difference – to attempt to limit price spikes.

China Daily reports that the country’s demand for liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) is “expected to rise in 2023 and use of the super-chilled fuel is forecast to pick up as additional measures have helped the economy to recover”, citing industry experts. The state-run newspaper adds that LNG imports this year are “likely to surpass 70m metric tonnes, 11% higher year-on-year, according to strategic research provider BloombergNEF, which says that this would ‘signify that China’s LNG demand is set to recover in 2023 as economic growth rises’”. 

Meanwhile, the state-run newspaper Global Times reports that He Lifeng, head of China’s top energy regulator, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has said that China is “willing to work with Japan to deepen cooperation in green and low-carbon industries, as well as carry out technology-related dialogue and people-to-people exchanges, so as to push bilateral cooperation in green development to a new level” at the 16th China-Japan Comprehensive Forum on Energy Saving and Environmental Protection.  Reuters reports that US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman said last Thursday she “hoped that Washington and Beijing would be able to continue to work together on climate ‘at this difficult time’”. Speaking at a Senate foreign relations committee hearing, Sherman listed areas of “potential cooperation with China including fighting the illicit drugs trade, climate, global health and people-to-people exchanges”, the newswire notes.

Separately, the Financial Times notes that Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has said the EU “also needed to do more to deal with Beijing’s support for its domestic industries”. She was speaking after European leaders discussed how to respond to US president Joe Biden’s “$369bn climate bill, which is wooing green businesses”. The Wall Street Journal writes that as Europe “ends its dependence on Russian natural gas, the region wants solar energy to become its prime source of electricity by 2030”. It adds that “one challenge will be achieving that without creating an energy dependency on China. Chinese companies now control over 80% of the solar supply chain worldwide, dominating the production of panels and their components”. 

Finally, the state-run industry newspaper China Energy News says that “guided by the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, a number of policies related to energy storage have been introduced intensively from national to local level and the whole industry has been ushering in unprecedented popularity”. Yu Zhenhua, executive vice president of the China Energy Storage Alliance, a trade association, said that “the downstream enterprises [of energy storage] are in more urgent need of policy support to collaboratively drive the solutions for core issues such as profitability models”. And Bloomberg reports that “Mongolia, the biggest supplier of coal to China’s steel industry, is changing the way it sells its product in a bid to improve transparency and reap better returns from its top export earner”.

The German federal government wants to tender for “large capacities” in gas-fired power plants this year, the German economy minister Robert Habeck has announced at the energy dialogue of the Federal Association of Renewable Energies (BEE), reports Montel. It quotes Habeck saying that “the capacities that [Germany] need today to secure the energy when there is little wind and no solar power must be built quickly based on molecule-driven power plants – gas for a short time, then hydrogen as quickly as possible”. Clean Energy Wire adds that Germany will also be auctioning a “huge number” of hydrogen-fired power plants and other backup capacities in 2023. In addition, Handelsblatt reports that Habeck is calling for the digitisation of the energy transition. “Germany lags behind,” he says. 

Meanwhile, Stern reports that the parent company of the largest electricity transmission system operators in Germany, TenneT, which is owned by the Dutch state, wants to negotiate with the federal government about selling its German electricity network to the state. As the outlet explains, the reason is the high equity requirement for the energy transition, which TenneT estimated at €‎15bn for expanding its German network alone. Lower Saxony’s energy minister Christian Meyer spoke in favour of the initiative: “That would help us a lot with a view to the urgently needed expansion of renewable energies,” said the Green politician, notes the outlet. Bloomberg quotes TenneT’s statement: “Motivated by their climate ambitions and geopolitical developments, both governments are heavily focusing on infrastructure development for the energy transition.” A deal is expected to be sealed by the end of June, adds the outlet.

Elsewhere in German media, Die Zeit reports on the negotiations regarding the supply of crude oil from Kazakhstan to the German PCK refinery in Brandenburg, which operates at 60% of its capacity after the abandonment of Russian oil. According to PCK, nine out of 10 cars in Berlin and Brandenburg run on fuel from Schwedt, notes the newspaper. 

Finally, the Financial Times reports that although the Christian Democratic Union won the election in Berlin on Sunday, it is likely that “the city will continue to be ruled by the three-way coalition between SPD, Greens and Die Linke, a hard-left party, that has governed it since 2016”.

An editorial in the Financial Times examines last week’s “machinery of government” changes to some of the UK ministries, with, most notably, the creation of the department of energy security and net-zero: “The changes do make some sense…For energy security and net-zero policy to be in its own department with a seat at the Cabinet table is logical. The need to safeguard energy supplies since Russia’s war on Ukraine must be carefully balanced with the imperative to accelerate the transition to renewables. While energy sources and costs are key issues for businesses – an argument for having them in one department – many felt energy had become predominant within [the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy], squeezing out the business focus.”

The Financial Times also carries a “big read” under the headline: “What Big Oil’s bumper profits mean for the energy transition”. It says: “The windfalls that BP, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total revealed in their end-of-year results have sparked outrage and accusations of war profiteering. It has also cast doubt over the commitment of executives, politicians and investors to the Paris climate agreement to slow global warming by bringing down emissions.” The article quotes Rachel Kyte, dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School and a former UN climate adviser: “We are relying on a hodgepodge of voluntary codes, voluntary standards and the markets. Regulation and legislation for the transition and net-zero is woefully missing in action.” Finally, the Times has a comment piece by Dominic O’Connell, a business presenter for Times Radio, headlined: “Investors have given BP’s Looney the green light to ditch low-carbon targets.”

The UK has long considered itself to be the leader of the green transition, writes Ben Spencer, the environment editor of the Sunday Times, but “that vision is now in doubt”. He continues: “The rest of the world has caught up. A green arms race is under way and business leaders fear Britain will soon be trailing behind…Our politicians’ biggest fear comes from across the Atlantic, where billions in new subsidies are now on offer. Joe Biden last year fired the starting gun with his Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)…Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, quickly promised to rival it with ‘unprecedented investment in clean technology’ in the EU. The basic fact is that the UK cannot compete – and the consequences are stark.” The article quotes Chris Stark, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, who says: “Rather than making the black stuff expensive, Biden said ‘Let’s make the green stuff really cheap’. That’s far more politically saleable. The reason we don’t have a good answer to what to do in response in the UK is that, culturally, it’s a very different approach.”

New research estimates that 70% of recent coastal land reclamation “has occurred in areas identified as potentially exposed to extreme sea level rise by 2100”. The authors analyse Landsat satellite imagery over 2000-20 to quantify the spatial extent, scale, and land use of urban coastal reclamation for 135 cities with populations of more than 1 million people. They find that 106 of the 135 cities studied “resorted to” land reclamation in the 21st century. In total, they added 253,000 hectares of additional land to the Earth’s coastal surface – equivalent to an area the size of Luxembourg. Coastal reclamation is especially prominent in east Asia, the Middle East and south-east Asia, followed by western Europe and west Africa, the study finds.