The falling costs of wind and solar power mean they will be cheaper than coal-fired generation in many countries within five years, and will provide 34% of the world’s electricity by 2040, according to new analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The report projects that a continuation of the trend that has seen the cost of wind power in the US drop 71% and solar 83% in the past nine years will mean the levelised cost of electricity fall by 47% for onshore wind and 66% for photo-voltaic solar by 2040, making them increasingly competitive against both coal and gas-fired power generation without government subsidies. The new analysis gives a very different view from the projections set out by large oil companies such as ExxonMobil, the piece notes, whose most recent forecast is that all renewable sources excluding hydro power will provide just 11% of the world’s electricity in 2040. The new BNEF analysis also expects global emissions of greenhouse gases from the power sector to peak in 2026, though they will still be some way above levels needed to limit temperature rises in line with the Paris climate agreement, says Reuters. Inside Climate News focuses on the report’s forecast that coal prices will soon be so uncompetitive that coal-fired power will drop 51% by 2040. Elsewhere, Grist reports that 10% of all of the electricity generated in the US in March came from wind and solar power, marking the first such milestone in U.S. history.

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, went to Capitol Hill yesterday to defend a budget proposal by president Trump that would begin to effectively dismantle the organisation, reports The Washington Post. Pruitt told members of a House Appropriations subcommittee be believed the EPA could “fulfil the mission of our agency with a trimmed budget, with proper leadership and management” and that the Trump administration’s proposal “supports EPA’s highest priorities” while aiming “to reduce redundancies and inefficiencies.” But members of the congressional committee made it clear they have no intention of approving the White House’s proposal to slash the agency’s spending, says Inside Climate News. Elsewhere, The Hill reports that the Department of Energy has closed its office for developing clean energy technology internationally while it looks for “ways to consolidate the many duplicative programs that currently exist”.

The UK has more than enough capacity to store captured CO2 emissions to meet its needs out to 2050, according to new research published by the Energy Technologies Institute. The government and industry-backed study suggests the east coast of England in particular is an ideal location for the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities and that there appears to be “no significant technical barrier” that would limit the CCS industry developing at scale in the UK from a number of strategic shoreline hubs. The report adds that achieving the UK’s legally binding 2050 carbon targets without deploying any CCS could add up to £2 billion a year throughout the 2020s to the otherwise lowest cost option for carbon reduction, notes Energy Live News.

A group of Europe’s leading businesses – including Unilever, Thames Water, and Ikea – have written a letter to EU climate, energy and environment ministers ahead of council meetings this month, urging them to raise ambition on tackling climate change. The letter emphasises the importance of the EU “continuing to show leadership” on climate change issues and urges nations to “embrace the opportunities that addressing climate change provides” in terms of jobs, growth and investment. The companies warn that without ambitious action, the bloc risks seeing its competitiveness eroded as emerging economies such as China and India step up investment in clean technology, reports Business Green.

Twitter is probably the last media source one would expect to host the debate on such a vital and complex subject as climate change, yet the world’s climate change scientists are flocking to the micro-blogging site to have their say, writes The Drum’s Ian Burrell. Having proudly been named Best Specialist Site for Journalism at this year’s Online Media Awards, Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman speaks to Burrell about why social media is becoming an unlikely frontline in this debate. Hickman says: “One of the most fascinating dynamics that has happened over the last five years is that with climate scientists getting more and more frustrated with being misrepresented in the media, either wilfully or through poor journalism, many have taken to Twitter to act almost as their own rebuttal machine…They can interact directly in ways that they would never have been able to before, calling out poor journalism and saying something is definitely wrong.”

The UK’s second shock poll result in a year has sparked renewed concerns over climate and environment policies following Brexit, writes Clark in the Financial Times. The question of how the UK will meet its own domestic climate goals had already been firmly put on the back burner ahead of the June 8 election and with the Conservative party election manifesto offering little in the way of clarity, investors and companies are raising fresh uncertainties about the future shape of green regulations. Even if the Conservative manifesto had been clearer, the piece notes, it may not have helped much considering the party lost its Commons majority in the election and now faces considerable uncertainties itself.

The Daily Mail has decided to blame “green targets” for the fatal Grenfell Tower fire, with a frontpage headline, inside column and an editorial – none of which have been published online yet. The paper has commissioned a very partial and highly selective opinion piece, without all the evidence yet available, by climate sceptic writer Ross Clark who seeks to blame the Climate Change Act. An editorial then seeks to further promote his unevidenced claim.

Dr Phil Williamson, a climate change academic at the University of East Anglia, explains why the oft-repeated climate sceptic argument that global warming stopped in 1998 is fundamentally flawed. Readers of the Spectator magazine may be used to hearing that argument, says Williamson, having been “raised on a diet of Matt Ridley and James Delingpole”. But looking at short term fluctuations in air temperatures is “only part of the story” since it ignores the wealth of evidence that the oceans warmed rapidly in that time. He says, “All the while, taking air and ocean heat content combined, the Earth was warming… The atmosphere and the ocean are warming in tandem, as predicted by climate models.” Genuine scepticism can be constructive, concludes Williamson, but “those who summarily dismiss evidence when it has become overwhelming no longer deserve the name sceptics — it’s then out-and-out denial.”

Rising temperatures could see populations of sea turtles initially increase before falling as their long-term survival is threatened, a new study suggests. Using six years of sand temperature data from a globally important loggerhead sea turtle rookery in the Cape Verde Islands, the researchers find that higher incubation temperatures result in more females hatching, which could see a 30% increase in nests by 2100. However, as incubation temperatures near lethal levels, the natural growth rate of the population then decreases.

A new paper reviews the state of the science around sequestering CO2 in the ocean by increasing ocean alkalinity. Scientists have proposed various technologies for this – such as accelerated weathering of limestone, enhanced weathering, electrochemical promoted weathering and ocean liming – and the cost may be comparable to other sequestration methods, the researchers say. “There are still many unanswered technical, environmental, social, and ethical questions,” the paper concludes, “but the scale of the carbon sequestration challenge warrants research to address these.”

Seasonal changes in the water cycle have a small influence on seismic activity along the San Andreas fault in California, a new study suggests. The researchers combined detailed earthquake records with high-resolution GPS data from the past nine years. Their results reveal how snow, rain, snowmelt and runoff – as well as water changes related to agriculture – alter stress on regional fault lines. In some cases, this influenced earthquake likelihood, the researchers say. In the San Andreas fault system, for example, conditions for quakes were more favourable during the drier summer months