The US House of Representatives has voted to withdraw California’s ability to bring in “its own, tougher pollution regulations” which would end the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks by 2035, according to the Verge. The House supported legislation to repeal a waiver granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under former president Joe Biden in December, allowing all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by that year, the article explains. The news outlet describes the move as “an attempt to kill one of the nation’s most ambitious climate plans and strip California of its ability to set stricter tailpipe pollution standards than the nation as a whole”. However, it adds that “it’s not clear that Republicans are even on sound legal footing in trying to stop the state from enacting its own rules”. According to the Washington Post, two “non-partisan watchdogs” – the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office – have concluded that Congress “lacks the legal authority to prevent states from enforcing such climate rules”. Reuters notes that California’s policy has been opposed by car manufacturers, fuel producers and US president Donald Trump. From model year 2026, California currently requires 35% of new cars sold by each automaker to be zero-emission, up from 25% that are electric today, NPR explains. It notes that the state’s rules “are not something automakers can brush off or overlook” as California is “a huge state and a major auto market”. Moreover, it adds that around a dozen other states have also adopted its zero-emission rule, meaning more than 30% of the US car market is covered by California’s policies.

Meanwhile, Politico reports that Republicans on the House Ways and Means committee are starting to “nail down the contours of their tax package”. According to sources speaking to the news outlet, this could include “sunsetting most or all of the clean energy tax credits from the Democrats’ 2022 climate law”. 

In other news, the Guardian reports that the Trump administration has “launched an unprecedented assault upon the environment, instigating 145 actions to undo rules protecting clean air, water and a livable climate in this administration’s first 100 days”. The newspaper explains that this is “more rollbacks than were completed in Trump’s entire first term as US president”. Politico says the Trump administration is “quietly scaling back” a multibillion-dollar programme to help protect homes, hospitals and other structures from floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. Inside Climate News says that the government has shown a “laser focus on eliminating environmental justice aid”, with more than $2.4bn “targeted for termination”. In further news of cuts, as another season of wildfires looms, a tool developed by EPA scientists to study the health effects of hazardous smoke “has effectively been grounded” due to a “massive agency overhaul”, Reuters reports. 

The US Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, has filed lawsuits against the states of Hawaii and Michigan due to their planned legal action against fossil-fuel companies for climate-induced harms, according to the Associated Press. Furthermore, the department has taken legal action against New York and Vermont, “challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions”, the newswire says. The “unprecedented” lawsuits “mark the latest of the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental work and raises concern over states’ abilities to retain the power to take climate action without federal opposition”, the article explains. The Democratic-led states have been accused by the Trump administration of trying to enforce “burdensome and ideologically motivated” legislation, Reuters says. Despite these actions, the newswire says that Hawaii has gone ahead with its lawsuit against companies including BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil.

In more US news, Bloomberg reports that the US Export-Import Bank is “getting back in the business of helping to finance foreign coal power plants”, after its board voted to lift a roughly 12-year-old curb on the bank’s lending. Reuters explains that this reflects “president Donald Trump’s agenda that calls for more domestic coal mining and exports of US coal”.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal has an article titled: “How the US oil industry has taken a beating under Trump, in charts.”

An “exclusive” frontpage story in the Guardian reports that banks in the City of London have “poured” more than $100bn (£75bn) into companies developing large fossil-fuel projections that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits, described as “carbon bombs”. Between the Paris Agreement entering into force in 2016 and 2023, nine London-based banks – including HSBC, NatWest, Barclays and Lloyds – have been involved in financing companies “responsible for at least 117 carbon bomb projects”, according to analysis cited by the newspaper. The article notes that this story follows previous Guardian reporting that identified “carbon bombs” and suggested that the UK only played a small role in hosting such projects. However, it says the new analysis – produced by the Leave It in the Ground Initiative – shows that “the UK is a key financial hub for destructive fossil fuel mega-projects, financing companies that are involved in more than a quarter of the carbon bombs identified across the globe”. The article notes that “some banks objected to the study’s methodology, questioning whether it was fair to attribute the entire emissions of a carbon bomb to a bank that had given finance to a company as a whole rather than to the specific project”.

Meanwhile, Axios covers a new study from risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, which concludes that companies listed on the world’s biggest stock exchanges could see $1.1tn worth of market value at risk in 2050 in countries facing “very high” climate exposure, up from $34.8bn today. The article notes that this is based on an “intermediate” emissions scenario, where global temperatures rise by 2.7C, something the outlet describes as “quite plausible”. Separately, the Prudential Regulation Authority has set out new guidance stating that UK financial services firms need to do more to meet regulatory expectations on risks posed by climate change, E&E News reports. 

A frontpage story in the Daily Telegraph focuses on how UK energy secretary Ed Miliband and housing secretary Angela Rayner have “joined forces on new rules for housebuilders”, which would involve all newbuild houses having heat pumps and solar panels installed. The newspaper says it understands that the changes to the future homes standard “will be announced by Ms Rayner this summer, and are likely to be in force by next year”. It stresses that the two ministers had opted for the most “ambitious” versions of these regulations, pushing to phase out gas boilers “as fast as possible in new homes by increasing the energy efficiency requirements on developers”. The whole article is framed as Miliband and Rayner working to “save net-zero” against a backdrop of a supposed “fight for net-zero”. The article cites recent comments by former prime minister Tony Blair, who “warned [prime minister] Keir Starmer that his current green policies were ‘doomed to fail’”. [This is a misinterpretation of Blair’s comments, which were not addressed to Starmer and did not focus on his government’s policies, as Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans explains in a Bluesky thread.]

Meanwhile, Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham has said “there is an absolute lack of a plan” regarding the transition to net-zero within the UK government, according to the Daily Mail. This, too, is linked by the newspaper to the “extraordinary intervention by Tony Blair”, which it says “exposed deep rifts in the party over Mr Miliband’s approach”. The newspaper frames Graham’s comments as an attack on Miliband and a sign of “Labour infighting”, even though she specifically refuses to comment on individual ministers. The Times reports that Graham told Times Radio “there is no plan” for re-skilling workers for new green jobs. “Nobody is going to trust net-zero when you can’t save 400 jobs in Grangemouth [oil refinery],” the union leader said, according to the newspaper. [Again, the Times links these comments to the criticism levelled by Blair, even though Graham’s comments are specifically about a just transition for workers, something that Blair did not focus on.] 

In a further development to the story about the report on climate policy from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the source of Blair’s comments, the Financial Times reports that the organisation recently “offered to advise Brazil’s COP30 climate summit, but was knocked back”. This was before Blair, in the foreword to the report in question, dismissed UN climate talks as lacking the “heft to drive action and impact”, the newspaper notes.

Zoë Yujnovich, the incoming National Grid chief executive, has previously said on a podcast that the journey to net-zero “must be achieved whilst providing a stable and reliable supply of energy”, according to the Daily Telegraph. The newspaper frames this as her “rais[ing the] alarm over speed of net-zero” and links her comments both to Blair’s statements and recent blackouts in Spain and Portugal. Elsewhere, there is ongoing coverage of the blackouts, with Wired delving into the underlying causes. E&E News says the blackout is a “warning sign for [the] US grid” and the Guardian has a piece citing experts who warn that “although wide-scale blackouts may be rare, no grid is infallible”. (Carbon Brief has an article rounding up coverage and analysis relating to the power cuts, including speculation about supposed links to renewable energy.) The Daily Telegraph has an article by Dr Capell Aris, a fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, headlined: “I’m a power engineer. The Iberian grid collapse makes me very afraid for Britain.” Ben Marlow, an associate editor at the Daily Telegraph, says the blackouts in Spain “prove why Britain must start taking nuclear seriously”.

Finally, amid local elections in England that have so far seen some success for the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK, as well as Labour, the Independent reports that Conservatives had suggested Labour could lose seats due to the party’s climate policies.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has instructed provincial officials in a symposium to “take a forward-looking approach” and adapt to the “changing international landscape” in formulating the next five-year plan (2026-30), state-run newspaper China Daily reports. In listing the priorities for the plan, which is due in March 2026, Xi stressed the importance of “new productive forces”, leveraging “technological innovation as the driving force and a robust real-sector economy as the grounding to advance the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and to foster the growth of emerging sectors”, says Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). 

Meanwhile, China has passed a new law “dedicated to promoting the private sector”, which will “support private firms’ entry into sectors such as infrastructure and energy”, according to Xinhua. SCMP also covers the story. China’s “two new” policy has driven a 19% increase in the “investment in equipment and tools” in the first quarter of this year, state broadcaster CCTV says, citing the National Development and Reform Commission. Energy news outlet BJX News publishes a report summarising “the key deployments by five major power generation companies” for the second quarter of this year. China has installed “over 120,000 tonnes per year of green hydrogen capacity” last year, the National Energy Administration said in its China Hydrogen Energy Development Report (2025), according to industry news outlet International Energy Net. Foreign carmakers including Volkswagen, General Motors and Nissan are tapping Chinese EV technologies” to “catch up with indigenous brands” after “losing their share to local rivals”, reports SCMP.

Elsewhere, Forbes says: “By not directly competing with energy-based alternatives, the US is losing its grip on the primary geoeconomic megatrend that will define the 21st century and risks ceding the future of energy [in Latin America] to China”. Dialogue Earth analyses how China could play a role “in supporting the world’s energy transition” through “trilateral cooperation” amid shifting geopolitics.

In comment, a “Xinhua commentary” says that “the passage of China’s first national law” promoting the private sector showed the sector’s importance in the “socialist market economy… cannot and will not be changed”. Ma Bo, an associate professor at Nanjing University, criticises the US push for “illegal deep-sea mining” in an opinion piece published in state-supporting Global Times, for undermining the “global consensus on ecological protection and sustainable development”. And the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily publishes an editorial reinforcing president Xi’s points for the 15th five-year plan to “seize on the impact brought by international changes, and make adjustments to optimise the country’s economic strategy accordingly”.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog has said that wildfires outside Jerusalem are “part of the climate crisis, which must not be ignored”, the Times of Israel reports. He made the remarks during a celebration of the nation’s independence day, adding that such events require “us to prepare for serious and significant challenges and to make decisions – including appropriate legislation”, the article adds. Elsewhere, the same newspaper describes the fires as “some of the worst [in Israel’s] history”. Sky News says around 5,000 acres have been burned since the fires began in the hills outside Jerusalem, although it notes that an evacuation order for around 12 nearby towns has now been lifted. Middle East Eye reports that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “claimed on Thursday that 18 individuals had been detained on suspicion of arson in connection with the ongoing wildfires”, noting that police sources suggested only three people had been arrested. The Times of Israel says the prime minister blamed the fires “on Palestinian incitement, but fire officials said to attribute fire to hiker negligence”. 

According to Haaretz, right-wing figures and online discourse in Israel “all focus on the question of arson and, as always, this is not the right question”. It notes that “the wildfire did not surprise anyone familiar with climate change in Israel”, adding that “massive wildfires are increasingly common in Mediterranean climates”. An editorial in the Jerusalem Post states: “Every year, Israelis experience the effects of climate change more and more, as the weather gets more extreme and not all disasters can be fought off. But we can be prepared.”

Sam Alvis, who used to work for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and now leads on climate at the thinktank IPPR, has an article in Prospect critiquing the contentious TBI report about climate policy that has made headlines this week. He notes that – putting any other criticism of the report aside – it has “clearly failed” to make much impact on the government’s views on net-zero. Alvis argues that this is because Blair’s thinking about climate action is outdated, with the former prime minister stuck in a time when the issue was seen as a “fringe concern of middle-class leftists”. In fact, he says support for such action these days is “fundamentally conservative”. He also suggests that Blair confuses “the more extreme demands of environmental advocates with mainstream ones” – pointing to demands for reduction in flights and meat consumption. Moreover, Alvis notes that Blair points to technologies that are relatively expensive and uncertain, such as nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS). “By focusing on those, rather than proven ones such as wind, solar and EVs, his institute’s proposals make net-zero more expensive,” the article argues. It concludes: “If there is a lesson to learn from Blair, it’s that one’s argument isn’t going to be right forever. When circumstances change, so should our thinking.”

Sir David King, chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group and former chief scientific adviser under Blair, has an article in the Guardian in which he says that he “support[s] much of the thrust” of the TBI report in question. “It rightly recognised that the era of endless summits and slogans must give way to one of delivery and impact,” he writes. Nevertheless, he says, the foreword – written by Blair and the focus of much of the media coverage – “has removed the balance of the report”. Contrary to what some of the widely cited comments by Blair implied, King says phasing out fossil fuels should be an “immediate priority” and notes that climate action is, in fact, very popular among the public.

In more coverage of the TBI report, an analysis piece by Kiran Stacey, political correspondent at the Guardian, lays out various criticisms levelled at the organisation itself. It explains that much of TBI’s policy work “promotes technology and artificial intelligence” as solutions to various problems, while receiving “much of its money from people connected to the technology industry”. The article adds that the institute “has also worked with fossil fuel companies and petrostates, including signing a multimillion pound deal to advise the Saudi government”. 

There are also a number of op-eds in UK newspapers linking Blair’s comments with the policies favoured by energy secretary Ed Miliband. An article by Ed Cumming, senior feature writer for the Daily Telegraph, focuses on the “toxic rivalry” between Blair and Miliband. “With Reform UK yapping at Labour’s heels, and looming challenges at home and abroad, perhaps Blair sensed an opportune moment to throw an unexpected jab at his old sparring partner,” he suggests. Climate-sceptic Conservative peer David Frost has an article in the Daily Telegraph titled “the glory days of net-zero are thankfully over”. He claims that “one day, and it will be soon, the whole net-zero climate mentality is going to disappear in a puff of smoke”. Frost says that Blair “can see the way things are going”, as supposedly evidenced by the foreword he wrote in the TBI report. An article in the Daily Express by personal finance editor Harvey Jones details the supposed “civil war” within Labour, sparked by Blair. The article is primarily a vehicle to criticise Miliband, noting that “his relentless net-zero crusade will leave Britain poorer and at risk of blackouts”. In his Daily Mail column, trailed on the frontpage, climate-sceptic commentator Richard Littlejohn writes at length about Miliband’s “lunacy and fanaticism” and his “futile pursuit” of net-zero. “Miliband belongs in a padded cell, but for now he’s got the British people in a suffocating strait-jacket instead, facing ever higher energy bills and economic ruin,” Littlejohn writes. Meanwhile, a Daily Mail editorial focuses on Unite union general secretary Sharon Graham’s comment that Miliband does not have a plan for net-zero. The newspaper agrees, stating that Miliband is an “eco-zealot, going all out for decarbonisation, rather than pursuing a pragmatic transition”.

The Independent’s chief political commentator, John Rentoul, writes that Blair has portrayed “Miliband’s approach” to net-zero as “a vote-loser and therefore a bar to genuine green progress”. He concludes: “If Starmer decides that Miliband is an electoral liability…He will go.” And the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer John Crace also covers the whole Blair controversy, writing that “the former prime minister can’t quite believe the world will keep spinning without his trademark well-timed interventions”.

A new study finds a “dramatic and ongoing decline” in the population of humpback dolphins in the Pearl River estuary, which feeds into the South China Sea. Researchers use data from field surveys and fishery activity, alongside climate change scenarios, to determine the impacts of both climate change and overfishing on the dolphin population there. They find a “moderate” impact of climate change, but note that projected future climate scenarios “reveal further population reductions, exacerbated by increasing fishing pressures”. They write that the study “provides crucial insights for developing integrated management strategies to safeguard the biodiversity and resilience of coastal marine ecosystems”.

New research shows “intensified daytime warming” over the past four decades, compared to warming during nighttime, potentially hindering ecosystems’ ability to mitigate climate change. Using satellite data and models, researchers analyse day-night temperature patterns to determine the responses of photosynthesis to changes in warming during one part of the day or the other. They find that daytime warming adversely affected photosynthesis in many places, particularly in arid regions, over 1982-2016. They write: “Overall, our study underscores a rapid shift of dominance from nighttime to daytime warming, posing a significant threat to vegetation productivity.”