Several UK outlets report that the country’s largest pension fund is to begin divesting from fossil fuels. The Guardian reports that the government-backed National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) scheme, which has nine million members, will ban investments in any companies involved in coal mining, oil from tar sands and arctic drilling. The move puts Nest “potentially at odds” with pensions minister Guy Opperman, who earlier this month condemned divestment as “counter productive”, the Guardian adds. Reuters reports that Nest aims to fully decarbonise its portfolio by 2050. The move “is one of the most ambitious to date and comes as regulatory pressure builds for the industry to better manage climate-related risk”, Reuters says. It adds: “As well as the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather, companies are at risk of costs associated with regulatory change and litigation linked to the transition to a low-carbon economy.” The i newspaper carries comments from Nest’s chief investment officer Mark Fawcett, who says: “Just like coronavirus, climate change poses serious risks to both our savers and their investments. It has the potential to cause catastrophic damage and completely disrupt our way of life.” BusinessGreen also has the story.

The world’s largest nuclear fusion project began its five-year assembly phase on Tuesday in southern France, the Guardian reports. The €20bn (£18.2bn) Iter project will replicate the reactions that power the sun and is intended to demonstrate that fusion power can be generated on a commercial scale, the Guardian says. The newspaper adds: “Nuclear fusion promises clean, unlimited power but, despite 60 years of research, it has yet to overcome the technical challenges of harnessing such extreme amounts of energy.” The project is the “most complex engineering endeavour in history”, according to the Guardian, involving the assembly of millions of components. BBC News reports the project is likely to begin to start generating the super-hot plasma required for nuclear fusion by 2025. Iter is a collaboration between China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US with all members sharing in the cost of construction, BBC News adds. Reuters also has the story.

A review of UK food policy is calling for “a gold standard level of scrutiny” to ensure new trade deals are not at odds with the environment, BBC News reports. The first report of the National Food Strategy calls for more scrutiny of “imports of beef reared on land recently cleared of rainforest”, among other issues, BBC News says. It adds that the 110-page report calls for the adoption of a statutory duty that would give parliament the opportunity to properly scrutinise any new trade deals. The second part of the National Food Strategy, due to be published in 2021, will examine issues such as climate change, biodiversity, pollution and zoonotic diseases, BBC News adds. The report warns that climate change will be the driver of the next major food emergency, the Guardian reports. The report also urges ministers to accelerate the Environmental Land Management scheme, which would pay English farmers £2.4bn a year to ensure they improve the countryside, encourage carbon capture and increase biodiversity, according to the Guardian.

The Guardian reports that a record 212 people were killed last year for defending their land and environment. More than four defenders were killed every week in 2019, according to an annual death toll compiled by the independent watchdog Global Witness, the Guardian says. The figures highlight “the routine murder of activists who oppose extractive industries driving the climate crisis and the destruction of nature”, the Guardian says.

An editorial in the Times “welcomes” UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s recently announced plans to boost cycling. It says: “Johnson has set out proposals to equalise the lopsided balance of power between motorists and cyclists, for whom an active, greener commute too often means a potentially lethal one…It is a radical prospectus but one welcome for its ambition. If realised, it would not only change Britain’s streets for the better but lifestyles too. Yet governments have tried and failed to get commuters on their bikes before.” An editorial in the Evening Standard calls Johnson’s plans a “laudable objective”. It reads: “The main reason is that cycling is not only good for us, but good for everyone, not least our children who for too long have been forced to grow up in a city with too much pollution and potentially long-term harm to their health.” An editorial in the Sun, meanwhile, strikes a different tone: “Britain is staring into an abyss. Hardly the time to borrow billions more to give middle-class people cut-price e-bikes.” In the i newspaper, environment reporter Madeleine Cuff tries out some of London’s newly installed cycle lanes.

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Guardian argues that the UK is being “left behind” in international ambition for a green recovery from coronavirus. The editorial says: “The progress made towards a post-Covid-19 green recovery for Britain is proceeding at a snail’s pace. By contrast, Germany, France, South Korea and others have unveiled plans that will pump vast amounts of government money into developing a low-carbon economy.” The UK must ramp out investment in areas such as “green hydrogen”, the Guardian says: “Britain has world-leading innovators in a market that is still embryonic and in need of support. Given a fair wind, these companies could expand to become global players in the developing market for green technologies, as well as driving a new generation of carbon-neutral infrastructure at home.”

In addition, an editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald argues that the Australia’s Liberal Party should follow in the footsteps of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher when creating environmental policy. It says: “Thatcher was both a leader of the fight for free markets and also a strong backer of action to protect the environment. ‘The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations,’ she said in 1990.”

Mustafa Santiago Ali, who was associate administrator in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice for more than two decades, writes in the Guardian that “racism is literally killing our people and planet”. The article reads: “The simple fact is that Black, Brown, Indigenous and lower-wealth communities have disproportionately been the dumping grounds for our country’s deadliest toxic pollutants.” His comments come as the Guardian reports on new research finding that, in the US, “black and brown neighbourhoods will be the hardest hit by global heating”. “Dangerous heatwaves are exacerbating systemic racial inequalities, with soaring temperatures expected to further disadvantage communities of colour if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising,” writes the Guardian’s environmental justice reporter Nina Lakhani. The Independent also covers the research.

The speed of increase for extremes in temperature will be twice as fast in the mid-latitudes and four times as fast in the tropics by 2080 when compared to today, if little action is taken to tackle climate change, a study says. Under a very high emissions scenario (RCP8.5), “the accelerated warming of heat extremes will be felt more strongly by populations than current changes”, the authors say. They add: “This evolution will be more perceived in heat stress than in temperature, particularly within the tropics.”