In the “latest action to undo Biden-era regulations on climate change”, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed repealing a rule that requires some public companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from global warming, says the Associated Press. The newswire adds: “The climate-disclosure rule has been on hold since last year, after the Republican-led commission said it was pausing its legal defense after legal challenges by business groups and Republican state attorneys general. The SEC said in a statement that it is now moving to rescind the disclosure rules ‘in their entirety because they exceed the scope of the agency’s statutory authority’.” 

The Hill says the “move is not a surprise”, adding: “Last year, the SEC voted to stop defending the 2024 rule against court challenges. Since that time, the litigation has been put on pause while the commission reconsiders the rule.” The New York Times says the move is a “victory for a range of business interests that had lobbied to kill or weaken the regulation, including airlines, oil and gas drillers, farmers, retailers and truckers”. It adds: “It [is] a blow to climate activists and some corporations that had embraced environmental, social and governance principles, known as ESG, in recent years…The SEC will solicit public comments on the proposed rollback for 60 days. Then the agency will finalize the proposal, likely within the next year or two.”

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that California air regulators have approved a “contentious overhaul of the state’s carbon market, creating a programme that could steer billions of dollars in free pollution permits to oil refineries and other major polluters over the objections of environmental groups, key lawmakers and three of the board’s own members”.

MORE ON US

• Inside Climate News: “Why wildfire experts are so worried about this year’s fire season.”
• Politico says the “Trump administration is approaching the hurricane season with the smallest disaster workforce since 2021 and that experts are “holding their breath”. CNN adds there are “power struggles and paralysis” inside the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as “storm season approaches”.
• Agence France-Presse: “In Colorado, Trump cuts to climate research take toll.”

China says it will “resolutely” retaliate if the EU “proceeds with new restrictive trade measures”, according to a statement released by China’s commerce ministry on Saturday, reports Bloomberg. The response follows preliminary EU meetings on Friday to address a “flood” of cheap Chinese imports that have undercut “numerous” European industries, including the clean technology sector. The commerce ministry also said that China and the EU are discussing the “establishment of a trade and investment consultation mechanism”, reports state news agency Xinhua. The New York Times says that “cutting back on China could prove profoundly tricky for Europe”, adding that China’s trade imbalance with the EU reached record levels early this year as electric vehicles (EVs) flooded in. State-run newspaper China Daily publishes an editorial saying that negotiations between China and the EU on Chinese-made EVs demonstrate that “dialogue can produce practical solutions; trade weaponisation cannot”. An editorial by the state-supporting Global Times says that excluding Chinese suppliers will weaken the EU’s “green transformation”.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the first batch of Chinese-made EVs is beginning to arrive in Canada at a tariff rate of around 6% under a new arrangement that prime minister Mark Carney agreed to in January during a visit to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping. China Daily quotes Kate Logan from the Asia Society’s Policy Institute saying that addressing climate change and cooperating on clean technologies can help the “new phase of constructive strategic stability to last long”. Xinhua reports that the world expects the two countries to “strengthen cooperation” on issues including climate change.

MORE ON CHINA

• Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has called for building a “fair, reasonable and win-win global climate governance system”, reports Xinhua.
• Nauruan president David Adeang says he hopes the rest of the world can “look to and learn from China” in addressing climate change, reports Xinhua.
• Bloomberg: “China sells $885m of green bonds in Hong Kong debut.”
• BJX News reports that China’s State Council has called for the “scaled-up” development of green buildings and low-carbon buildings.
• China’s NDRC has called for ensuring “stable electricity generation and supply” during the summer, reports BJX News. It also urges efficient “interprovincial electricity transfers and mutual support”, according to China Energy Net.
• Reuters: “China expects El Niño weather effects to peak in autumn and winter.”

There is continuing coverage of the extreme heatwave that hit the UK last week, with Reuters reporting that “thousands of households in ​south-east England were left without water” as “high demand followed a dry spring to expose the failings in Britain’s ageing infrastructure”. The newswire adds: “Britain, like much of Europe, has ​been hit by a heatwave…stoking demand for water, while well-below-average ⁠rainfall levels in March and April left some reservoirs under pressure, according to the Environment Agency.” The Guardian has a feature on “Britain’s unequal heatwave”, leading with the quote from a London commuter: “That’s why we work in finance – so one day we can afford air-con.” The Daily Telegraph reports on the “battle to stop Britain burning”, saying that “faced with warming temperatures, the country’s wildlife and vegetation is threatened by destructive fires”. The i newspaper claims “extreme heat is putting the UK at risk of blackouts as the grid struggles to cope with soaring temperatures”. Another article in the i newspaper sits under the headline: “36C classrooms are coming and they will make pupils fail exams.” The Times says: “Dim the sun to tackle climate change? Fine by us, public suggests.”

MORE ON UK

• The Times reports that “British taxpayers could have to pay £300m to a company behind an aborted coalmine [in West Cumbria], in a legal case MPs have branded an ‘outrage against common sense’”.
• BBC News: “London to miss 2030 net-zero target, mayor admits.”
• Wes Streeting’s interview with the Sunday Times – in which the former education secretary, who would compete in any Labour leadership contest, says he is in favour of issuing North Sea drilling licences – is picked up by outlets such as the Guardian and BBC News.
• The Sunday Times: “Andy Burnham the ‘interventionist’? Not worried, says energy giant.”
• The Spectator has an “exclusive” claiming that “Keir Starmer is planning a major intervention on electricity, to be announced in the coming weeks”.
• The climate-sceptic Mail on Sunday carries the views of the “boss of the UK’s last aluminium smelting plant” who attacks “Ed Miliband’s net-zero policies”.

Writing in the Independent, former editor of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger comments on the factors behind why his own industry is failing readers on climate change: “There’s less outright climate denialism in [UK] mainstream media today. But there are still oceans of climate scepticism. A thousand different excuses for attacking net-zero as a goal. A dozen different ways of suggesting Ed Miliband is a bonkers fanatic. Hundreds of deluded articles argue that, if only we could restart drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea, our energy prices would immediately plummet. Even Tony Blair has jumped on that particular bandwagon.” He adds: “In an age before newsroom metrics, editors felt freer to publish stories they felt their audience should read as opposed to the ones they actually wanted to. Nowadays, that’s easily dismissed as paternalistic self-indulgence…We’re downplaying the stuff that should be banner headlines. We’ve been trapped into thinking of climate change as woke. We – wrongly – think our readers don’t care. And when we get the hottest May on record we, once again, miss the real story.”

MORE EXTREME WEATHER COMMENT

• In the Independent, international news reporter James C Reynolds argues that the “scorching May heatwaves are here to stay and northern Europe is totally unprepared”. 
• Contributor Janice Turner in the Times: “The tropical weather is here to stay, so let’s adapt our working hours, hospitals and homes. Ceiling fans would be a start.”
• Clean-heating expert Dr Richard Lowes for LBC: “Air conditioning alone will never keep Britain cool.”
• Columnist Mark Gongloff for Bloomberg: “Texas has a water crisis. Its response is a disaster.”

An editorial in the Guardian warns readers not to miss the significance of a second byelection taking place on 18 June: “If Makerfield is a test case for Mr Burnham and Labour’s ability to see off Reform UK, Mr Flynn’s old constituency of Aberdeen South is on the frontline of the increasingly fraught politics of North Sea oil…Reform UK’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ hostility to climate action may be too extreme for Aberdeen voters aware that future prosperity rests on becoming a clean-energy hub. But soaring energy prices and job losses in the oil and gas industry have delivered the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, the chance of a morale-boosting victory on SNP turf…Ahead of a UK general election where the right will seek to portray net-zero as an unsustainable economic burden, that would be an ominous outcome.” The editorial adds: “Whatever the result in Aberdeen on 18 June, the government should treat the revived debate about North Sea oil and gas as a warning. Greater resources need to be dedicated to ensuring a faster, more equitable transition…Makerfield will grab most of the media’s attention [this] month. But Aberdeen South’s byelection may also be a wake-up call for Westminster.”

MORE UK COMMENT

• Guardian environment editor Fiona Harvey reflects on how, after “we began writing the Down to Earth newsletter in 2021, the global political, economic and environmental landscape has changed drastically”.
• Writing in the Times, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch rages against the “absurdities of Miliband’s Climate Change Act” and its “terrible measures”, which “all subsequent Conservative leaders subscribed to until I took the wheel”. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck: “What the Climate Change Act does – and does not – mean for the UK.”
• An editorial in the climate-sceptic Sun rails – yet again – against “Ed Miliband’s net-zero fantasy”.
• The climate-sceptic Daily Express platforms two prominent commentators who have close links to climate-sceptic lobby groups.
• The climate-sceptic Mail on Sunday offers a platform to former National Farmers’ Union chief Minette Batters to attack solar-farm “monstrosities”.

A feature in the Guardian looks at how “Australia is pioneering a revolution in home renewables and battery use, proving what is possible with the right policies”, adding: “The advent of batteries with longer durations means past criticisms of solar energy – that the sun doesn’t shine at night – is being ‘blown out of the water’.” It concludes with a quote from Alison Reeve, the energy and climate change programme director at the Grattan Institute thinktank: “It is a profound change in how you run an energy market. The message is that if you can make rooftop solar happen, you can make a number of other changes really easily. And storing energy just opens up so much more flexibility in the system. We’ve just found a new way to do it.”

MORE COMMENT

• An editorial in the Financial Times on the “bumpy road to electric vehicle success” references how “Ferrari Luce’s launch caused more heat than light, but has lessons for incumbents”.
• Scientist and author Dana Nuccitelli explains in Yale Climate Connections how “solar, wind and EVs have knocked out a doomsday [RCP8.5] climate scenario”. In contrast, the Wall Street Journal’s climate-sceptic columnist Holman W Jenkins Jr repeats Donald Trump’s inaccurate comments about RCP8.5. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck: “Trump’s false claims about the IPCC and ‘RCP8.5’ climate scenario.”]
• Columnist Javier Blas for Bloomberg: “An LNG glut is on its way.”
• An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal claims China is “cooking its carbon emissions books”, based on a partial reading on recent analysis published by Carbon Brief.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Leo Hickman, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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