The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun to “dismantle” rules that limit pollution from power plants, reports the Financial Times. Repealing the two rules that limit carbon dioxide (CO2) and other pollutants is part of president Donald Trump’s US “energy dominance” agenda, it adds. Climate-sceptic EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said repealing the rules would remove billions of dollars in costs for industry, helping to “unleash” US energy, reports the Associated Press. Revoking the limits on pollution removes the “cornerstone of a decade-long strategy to douse one of the nation’s largest sources of heat-trapping gases”, reports Politico. The announcement follows Zeldin stating in March that he would unwind three dozen existing EPA air and water rules, reports Reuters. Speaking at a news conference, Zeldin dubbed efforts to fight climate change a “cult” and said the pollution limits written by the Biden administration were designed to “destroy industries that didn’t align with their narrow-minded climate change zealotry”, reports the New York Times. The Associated Press asked scientists about the repeal, with “all saying that the proposal was scientifically wrong and many of them called it disinformation”. The story is also covered by Bloomberg, the Hill and others.

In other US news, almost all staff who work on Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, have been fired, reports the Guardian. According to multiple former staff responsible for the site’s content who have had their contracts terminated, it looks like the website will no longer publish information, it adds. 

UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’ “hotly anticipated” spending review, announced yesterday, included support for clean energy, low-carbon industry, sustainable transport and nature-friendly farming, reports BusinessGreen. (Carbon Brief has summarised all of the key climate and energy announcements). “Today’s announcements leaned heavily on low-carbon power projects, including support for Sizewell C, small modular reactors (SMR), and carbon capture and storage hubs, all of which are expected to see an uplift in spending over the coming years”, it adds. Reeves confirmed that the government will fully honour the Labour manifesto commitment to provide £13.2bn in funding to “fix draughty homes and install heat pumps and solar panels”, reports the Guardian. The article notes that she does not mention this as an environmental issue, but as a means to save people £600 a year in bills on average. Ed Miliband’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) were one of the “biggest winners” in the spending review, reports the Times. In addition to £14bn funding for Sizewell C nuclear power plant, “ministers have also opened the door to allow the government’s national wealth fund to invest in private-sector led nuclear projects and provide more money for research into nuclear fusion”, the article notes. A separate piece in the Guardian highlights the large boost in flood-defence spending, totalling £1.4bn each year, equalling a 5% increase compared to the current period. There was also an increase in funding for “nature recovery” and £7bn in total for schemes such as environmental farming, peatlands and tree planting, it adds. Conversely, the Daily Express reports that the environment is the “one of the biggest losers” in the budget, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) set to lose 2.7% in real terms over the next four years. The Financial Times highlights that ministers “failed to agree” on a plan to cut the UK’s high energy costs ahead of the spending review. In a separate piece in BusinessGreen, it quotes Reeves saying “energy security is national security” and, “in an age of insecurity, the government must step up to provide security for working people and resilience for our national economy”.

Elsewhere, Rolls-Royce is to develop new small modular reactors (SMRs), having won a government-backed competition, reports the Financial Times. The company will receive £2.5bn to support the development of the new generation of nuclear technology, it adds. Reeves has “effectively cut” from the government’s national energy company GB Energy by sharing its £8.3bn funding with a separate nuclear power body set up by the Conservatives, reports the Guardian. The article highlights that the full amount was pledged to the energy company within Labour’s manifesto, but £2.5bn will now be used to fund SMRs, it explains. The Daily Telegraph warns that “Ed Miliband’s bet on mini nukes risks backfiring – unless he goes all in”. The cost of the new nuclear power plant Sizewell C has doubled as “ministers race to strike a funding deal with private investors and the French government”, reports the Daily Telegraph in another article. The official cost estimate for the nuclear power plant was previously put at £20bn, but has since grown with the UK government – a co-owner of the site alongside French state-backed energy giant EDF – expected to “shoulder at least half of the upfront cost”, it adds.

The World Bank is lifting its ban on financing nuclear energy, in a “policy shift aimed at accelerating development of the low-emissions technology to meet surging electricity demand in the developing world”, reports the Financial Times. The bank’s president announced yesterday in an email to staff that it would “begin to re-enter the nuclear energy space”, with plans to partner with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the article says. The email adds: “We will support efforts to extend the life of existing reactors in countries that already have them, and help support grid upgrades and related infrastructure.”. The bank’s president Ajay Banga added that the board was not yet in agreement about whether it should engage in funding for natural gas and, if so, under what circumstances, reports Reuters. The World Bank is looking for ways to bolster energy access, with Banga describing meeting power demand as “one of the most urgent and complex development challenges we face,” reports Bloomberg. The decades-long ban was formally brought in in 2013, but the last time the bank funded a nuclear power project was in Italy in 1959, notes the New York Times.

China’s production and sales of new-energy vehicle (NEV) reached just under 6m units in the first five months of this year, a year-on-year increase of around 45%, state news agency Xinhua reports. State-run newspaper China Daily says that, by the end of 2024, China “had 31m NEVs, representing about 9% of its automobile fleet”. Industry news outlet BJX News reports that China has issued a plan for “organising hydrogen energy pilot projects”, which covers pilots for hydrogen production, storage, transportation, applications and “support mechanisms”. BJX News also reports China is calling for “publicity and education” on energy conservation and carbon reduction. Separately, typhoon Wutip, the first typhoon of the season, is expected to hit China’s Hainan province, Bloomberg reports, adding that, in 2024, typhoons in the region were “fuelled by a warming climate”.

Elsewhere, a Chinese manufacturer of rare-earth magnets says it has received “export permits” to several countries – including the US – following US-China trade talks in London, Bloomberg reports, adding that the magnets are “vital for the auto industry [and] turbine makers”. US president Donald Trump wrote on social media that “full magnets and any necessary rare earths will be supplied, up front, by China” following the talks, reports the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Reuters reports that Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao has said in London that China and the UK should “expand cooperation” in fields including “sustainability” and “green initiatives and finance”. 

Meanwhile, China’s vice premier Ding Xuexiang has said at a forum in China that China and other belt and road initiative member states should “strengthen open cooperation in science and technology innovation”, Xinhua reports. Xinhua also says China is willing to work with African countries to “thoroughly implement” initiatives such as strengthening cooperation in “green industries”. China Finance, a news outlet run by People’s Bank of China, publishes an article by Renmin University’s Wang Wen and Liu Jintao saying that the global climate governance has entered a “new phase of redesign” under the new US administration, adding that the “future direction” of China’s energy transition and climate-related competition between China and the US will “determine the effectiveness of global climate action”.

According to a new study, the collapse of the network of Atlantic Ocean currents could push parts of the world into a “deep freeze”, with winter temperatures falling to around -55F (-48C) in some European cities, reports CNN. “There is increasing concern about the future of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – known as the AMOC – a system of currents that works like a giant conveyor belt, pulling warm water from the Southern Hemisphere and tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, where it cools, sinks and flows back south”, the article continues. The study found that, if this happens, it would bring “profound climate and societal impacts,” it adds. (Carbon Brief has also covered the study in detail, stressing: “The research does not look at when AMOC might tip – instead, it focuses on scenarios in the far future when this has already happened, so as to explore what impact it would have.”). In the absence of a warm front brought by the AMOC, the UK could be “plunged into a new ice age in winter, battling frozen runways, roads, forests and farmland”, reports Sky News. Arctic sea ice would cover much of Scotland and the North Sea, while temperatures in London would reach lows of -19C, some 16C colder than the lows in 1800s, “before humans began warming the climate”, it adds.

Elsewhere, European funds to prevent forest fires have been poorly targeted and sometimes distributed in a hurry, according to a report from the EU’s spending watchdog”, reports the Guardian.

During his visit to France this week to attend the UN ocean summit, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he would “call” US president Donald Trump, if he does not confirm his attendance at COP30, to “persuade him”, AFP reports. The newswire adds that, although the US announced in April the shutdown of the country’s office in charge of climate diplomacy, Lula says that the “great rulers’ should be involved in ‘finding a solution [to climate change]”. The Brazilian newspaper O Globo also reports that deforestation in the Amazon reached “record highs” in May, after two years of decline. The world’s largest rainforest lost 960 square kilometres of forest, “equal to an increase of 92% in deforestation in comparison to May last year”.

Elsewhere, journalist Javier Palummo writes a commentary for Spain’s El País addressing the “inequalities compounded by climate change in Latin America”. He mentions that the region is going through “persistent inequalities”, with 10% of the richest sector of society concentrating 66% of wealth, which is driving economic vulnerability and “democratic erosion”. That is aggravated by extreme events, such as wildfires, which “ultimately lead to climate migration, food shortage and undermine the local economy”. 

Meanwhile, a study finds that the decline in seed-dispersing animals, including birds, fish, and amphibians, hinders climate action, according to a study covered by Agência FAPESP via Folha de São Paulo. Researchers indicate that a number of tree species in the Amazon, the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado biome rely highly on these species to continue reproducing and that the loss of fruit-eating animals disturbs the composition of forests, “reducing their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide”.

Writing in the Guardian, UK prime minister Keir Starmer argues that the spending review “marks a new stage in the mission of national renewal, built on the foundations laid last year”. The Labour party was elected on a mandate of “rebuilding Britain” and the funding announcements will help “turbocharge” this across the country, he writes. “That means carbon capture projects in Merseyside, Scotland and along the east coast. It means nuclear fusion in Nottinghamshire. Rail investment in Wales”, continues Starmer. The government is “creating new opportunities by investing in homegrown clean energy and life sciences where Britain has a competitive edge”, he writes, before concluding: “I know there is so much more to do. But this week we entered a new stage in the mission of national renewal. Last autumn, we fixed the foundations. Today, we showed Britain we will rebuild.” Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Reeves says: “We need to grow the economy. That is why I announced this week we are giving the green light to Sizewell C, a multi-billion nuclear station that will create tens of thousands of jobs. We are investing to fix our roads, rail and national infrastructure, so people can get to and from work and businesses can prosper. And we are creating jobs in the industries of the future – from defence and nuclear to technology and life sciences.”

Meanwhile, in an editorial, the Guardian highlights wins for Ed Miliband’s department, amid Reeves “shrewdly tightened belts and loosened seams” in the spending review. An editorial in the Independent notes that “funds flowing into green energy, transport, housing, AI, R&D, training and alleviating child poverty…draw important political dividing lines between the government, the Conservatives and Reform UK”. In the Times, an editorial dubs the green light for the Sizewell C nuclear power plant and £15bn for local transport projects “welcome and overdue”. An editorial in the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph argues that “Reeves’s choices will make Britain poorer”. 

Elsewhere, analysis in the Guardian by Fiona Harvey and Helena Horton argues that the spending reviews show Labour’s plans to “take on the right” over net-zero: “By earmarking billions of pounds for the green economy, Labour is setting itself apart from the Tories and Reform.” Also in the Guardian, financial editor Nils Pratley argues that GB Energy’s budget has been “nuked”, after 30% of its budget is being put towards SMRs rather than renewables. In the Financial Times, a Lex column argues that the UK should not be faulted for funding Sizewell C, as “even expensive nuclear power is cheaper than it looks”. In the Times, climate-sceptic columnist Juliet Samuel quips that “Ed Miliband’s going nuclear (all over again)”. In the Daily Express, Lois Perry, UK director of notorious climate-denial thinktank Heartland Institute, argues that Miliband will “fail again” in his push for nuclear. In the Independent, former deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell argues that cuts to foreign aid in the spending review will “come back to haunt the UK”. 

In other comment, Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, argues in the Guardian that, as Australia bids to host COP31, it is “time to stop talking and start doing”. In the Hill,  director of the Resiliency Office in Washtenaw County and former advisor under president Joe Biden Beth Gibbons writes that the US will “suffer” due to Trump gutting the National Climate Assessment. 

New research identifies an “abrupt change” in rainfall seasonality in monsoon regions around the world between 1960-22. The researchers analyse variations in rainfall seasonality, finding that seasonal trends weakened in monsoon regions in parts of south Asia, South America, north Africa and southern Africa in the past six decades. Rainfall seasonality enhanced significantly in other areas, including parts of south Asia, north Africa and South America. These findings contribute to “enhancing agricultural productivity, fostering ecosystem sustainability, and promoting water resources management”, the study authors write.