The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a “major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming”, reports the New York Times. The newspaper adds: “The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.” Legal experts tell Inside Climate News that cases in a federal court, rather than at state level, tend to be “much more open” to the arguments of fossil-fuel companies. 

The Guardian says the contested lawsuit was filed by the city of Boulder, Colorado against oil giants Suncor Energy USA and ExxonMobil. Bloomberg notes that the city argues that “oil companies misled the public about the risks of climate change and knowingly contributed to the phenomenon by producing and promoting fossil fuel” and that companies should cover some of the climate-related costs for states and local governments. Reuters says the companies had previously urged lower courts to dismiss the case. This was denied by the Colorado Supreme Court in May 2025, the newswire explains, which “prompted” this appeal to the US Supreme Court. It adds: “President Donald Trump’s administration backed the appeal by the oil companies.” Agence France-Presse also covers the story. 

MORE ON US 

• A “massive snowstorm” has hit the northeast of the US, says the Associated Press. It dropped more than 76cm of snow in some areas, notes Reuters. 
• Inside Climate News looks at how these kinds of snowstorms “can trigger more dangerous flooding” in the state of New Jersey. 
• The Times-Picayune examines how the Trump administration’s withdrawal of the endangerment finding could impact the “hurricane-prone” state of Louisiana.
• Republicans hope Trump will discuss energy issues during his state of the union address later today, reports E&E News.
• Battery storage installations grew by 29% last year in the US, says Axios.

China’s steel industry completed its “ultra-low-emissions retrofitting programme” by the end of 2025, with ultra-low-emissions crude steel capacity now at more than 80% of total capacity, reports state broadcaster CCTV. [The standard refers to emissions of particulates and other pollutants, rather than to carbon dioxide.] The broadcaster adds that energy consumption by  “blast furnaces” and “converters” both fell slightly compared to 2023 levels, reducing carbon emissions by 34m tonnes. It says the industry also continues to develop “cutting-edge” low-carbon “demonstration projects”, such as “near-zero-carbon factor[ies]” and “pure hydrogen vertical furnace[s]”. Meanwhile, local news outlet the Beijing Daily says Chinese scientists have developed a “supercritical carbon dioxide [CO2] power generation unit” that super-heats CO2 to generate electricity.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s “shift towards greener production not only strengthens competitiveness but also enhances long-term sustainability”, according to CGTN.
• German chancellor Friedrich Merz will travel to China on Wednesday and Thursday this week, says China Daily. China-Germany climate cooperation is “possible, necessary and, ultimately, rational”, Zhejiang University Qiushi chair professor Shen Wei, writes in a China Daily comment.
• Bloomberg says Merz is “likely to discuss” critical-mineral export controls with Xi, as China is only delivering a “fraction” of companies’ orders. US president Donald Trump’s “immediate goal” during his own April trip is to avoid escalating tensions over critical minerals such as gallium, says the South China Morning Post. 
• Green Central Banking says China is one of only two countries in Asia that “make[s] no reference to climate adaptation activities” in its green finance taxonomy.

Major extreme-weather events and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”, according to a recent study covered by the Guardian. The newspaper says a group of experts identified the key vulnerabilities in access to food – “including the climate crisis, low incomes, poor farming policy and fragile just-in-time supply chains”. It reports that they then assessed the events that could “tip this vulnerable system into a full-blown food crisis, with major extreme weather events, cyber-attacks or international conflicts ranked top”. The newspaper notes that the researchers highlight the urgency of “addressing the systemic vulnerabilities to a food crisis”, such as producing a wider and “more resilient” range of food in the UK. 

MORE ON UK 

• The hard-right Reform UK mayor of Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, “has courted the head of an American oil and gas dynasty in the hope of bringing fracking to the county”, reports the Guardian. [The government is planning to ban fracking.]
• The Financial Times: “Rapid UK coastal erosion throws spotlight on £40bn nuclear plant.”
• The Green Party are the “bookmakers’ odds-on favourites” to win a by-election in a “once-sold Labour seat” in Manchester later this week, reports the Financial Times.

Airline Air France-KLM and two other companies will have to pay out to bondholders “because they failed to meet greenhouse gas targets”, reports Bloomberg. The outlet says the companies missed emissions goals “embedded into their sustainability-linked bonds” in the “latest example of firms struggling to meet environmental commitments set years ago”. It adds that sales of sustainability-linked bonds – in which the “interest companies and governments pay is tied to meeting pre-determined environmental, social or governance goals” – peaked in 2021 and have since fallen each year. 

MORE ON BUSINESS

• The Los Angeles Times reports that Apple has “quietly remove[d]” an environmental provision from executive pay packages, which allowed a change to annual bonuses “depending on the company’s performance on a variety of measures, including greenhouse gas reductions and renewable energy use among suppliers”.

Bloomberg columnist David Fickling writes that until recently countries “ignored the risk that China might weaponise control of critical minerals for geopolitical ends”. Now, he says, “the bigger risk is that we’re freaking out about it too much”. Fickling writes that despite the US government pledging billions towards mining and stockpiling critical minerals, “there’s no consistent vision of who this money will serve and what elements are most in need of support”. He explains that this could mean the private sector will use public money “to help hedge its pricing risk for major minerals that aren’t really at risk of geopolitical disruption, and in the process crowd out efforts to protect smaller-volume commodities where the threat is greater”. Fickling concludes: “Solving the problem will require focusing on the handful of materials that are truly threatened, rather than using government money to lock down the entire periodic table.” 

MORE COMMENT

• Compliance costs for the EU’s deforestation regulation could “limit its impact on reducing deforestation”, Daniel Nepstad and Bjorn Rask Thomsen from the Earth Innovation Institute write in Mongabay. 
• Freelance journalist Jem Bartholomew writes in the Columbia Journalism Review that Trump “doesn’t bother sugarcoating the unpalatable facts” on climate change anymore, “he simply pretends they don’t exist”. Bartholomew adds: “The Trump administration may be burying its head. But journalists can’t afford to look away now.” 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Orla Dwyer, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Simon Evans.

Subscribe for free.