Wind speeds in the UK are not high enough to allow new windfarms in England to be economically viable, says the head of Renewable UK. Hugh McNeal insisted the industry could make the case for more onshore turbines in some parts of the UK, despite the withdrawal of subsidies, but that these would “almost certainly” not be in England. McNeal’s comments first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph during his first interview since joining RenewableUK two months ago. Confident that the industry can carve out a future for offshore and onshore wind, McNeal says it may be time for a different approach: “I think we have been rushing into ‘asks’ when we should be showing what we can offer.” McNeal’s comments on the future of wind power in England were also picked up by yesterday’s Express and Mail Online. An editorial in today’s Daily Mail calls for “a halt to these monstrous blots on the rural landscape”. Elsewhere, The Financial Times reports on a pledge by some of Europe’s largest energy companies to cut the cost of offshore wind farms, bringing them more in line with gas and coal power stations. Germany power giants, RWE and Eon, have joined foces with Sweden’s Vattenfall and Norway’s Statoil, promising to drive down costs to €80 per megawatt hour by 2025, close to half today’s costs.

The government has insisted it remains committed to its pledge to phase out unabated coal power plants by 2025, following a meeting in which energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, suggested to coal industry representatives there could be some leeway in what is meant by “unabated”. The Department of Energy and Climate Change last week refused to provide a definition of “unabated”, reports The Telegraph, insisting that a forthcoming consultation would “seek to clarify” what is meant by the term. It is not clear in what way a plant could be “partially abated” or how the government would treat coal plants that co-fired biomass, says Gosden.

Oil and gas companies that don’t take the global shift towards reducing climate risks seriously could leave them open to financial disaster, Economist Nicholas Stern has told a climate task force set up by the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney. The gap between what nations signed up to in Paris and what businesses are assuming will happen should could lead to “mass scrapping and stranding” of fossil fuel assets, something that should worry policy makers and central bankers, Stern said in a submission to the task force, due to report in December on progress towards developing uniform, voluntary disclosure standards that companies can use to demonstrate they are dealing with climate-related financial risks.

A polar scientist has claimed the latest figures for the amount of sea ice in the Arctic suggests it is on track to be ice free this summer, for the first time in more then 100,000 years. Provisional satellite data show just over 11.1 million square kilometres on 1 June this year, compared to the average of nearly 12.7 million square kilometres. Other scientists are dubious, however. Professor Jennifer Francis, who studies the effect of the Arctic on northern hemisphere weather, said Wadhams’ prediction was “highly unlikely” to come true this year. While a new record low is very possible this summer, scientists don’t expect ice-free conditions until sometime between 2030 and 2050.

Plans to build the world’s biggest offshore wind farm faces delays because of the potential impact on porpoises. A decision on planning permission for Dong Energy’s 1.8 gigawatt Hornsea Two project off the Yorkshire coast was expected this week but will now need to go through a Habitats Regulation Assessment, after the department for environment and rural affairs proposed a Special Area of Conservation over the sea mammals’ habitat. Emerging technologies exist to reduce the noise impact but such measures are likely to be unwelcome when developers are under pressure to adhere to the government’s cost-reduction targets, says The Telegraph. A decision is now expected on 16th August.

The author, who is a PhD student at UNSW Australia, says that climate change did not directly cause this weekend’s storms? “These events, including intense ones, often occur at this time of year. But it is harder to rule out climate change having any influence at all. For instance, what is the impact of higher sea levels on storm surges? And how much have record-warm sea temperatures contributed to rainfall and storm intensity? We know that these factors will become more important as the climate system warms further – so as the clean-up begins, we should keep an eye on the future.”

The transition away from oil, gas and coal is certainly coming but we should expect its passage to be as disruptive as that of the Arab Spring, says Nick Butler. This runs contrary to the view of the World Economic forum, whose new set of papers describes a smooth and orderly shift that benefits most of the global economy. Evidence suggests that economically and politically, it’s much more likely to have the opposite effects, says Butler, and t’s better to be prepared for the consequences than blinded by wishful thinking.

Scientists have observed a “double peak” El Niño – where two separate centres of positive sea surface temperature anomalies evolve concurrently in the eastern and western equatorial Pacific – in global climate models but not, so far, in the real world. The authors suggest the western Pacific warm peak emerges as a result of a westward extension of a cold tongue, displacing strong sea surface temperature gradients towards the west Pacific – a finding that they say could help interpret model projections of El Niño events under global warming scenarios.