BBC Radio 4 broke accuracy rules by failing to challenge Lord Lawson’s misleading claims about climate change in an interview, the broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, has ruled. Featuring on the Today programme last summer, Nigel Lawson claimed that “all the experts say there hasn’t been” an increase in extreme weather events and that “during this past 10 years … average world temperature has slightly declined”. Following complaints, Ofcom ruled that “neither statement was correct, or sufficiently challenged during the interview or subsequently during the programme”. Ofcom also noted that the programme “did not clearly signal to listeners that [Lord Lawson’s] view on the science of climate change ran counter to the weight of scientific opinion in this field”, notes the BBC’s own article. Lawson is a former chancellor of the exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s government and founder of the climate sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The BBC’s complaints unit admitted last year that Lawson should have been challenged “more robustly”. The Ofcom ruling follows another interview with Lawson about climate change in 2014, when the BBC upheld a complaint, says the Times. An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We’ve told the BBC we are concerned that this was the second incident of this nature, and on the same programme.” The BBC avoided a breach under a second rule, which says significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and quickly corrected on air, reports the Press Gazette, because the Today programme team examined some of Lawson’s more contentious and inaccurate claims in an item the following day and on the BBC News website. iNews also has the story, and at the time of the original interview, Carbon Brief published a detailed factcheck highlighting Lawson’s inaccuracies

The amount of snowfall on Antarctica has increased by around 10% over the last 200 years, research shows. Analysis of 79 ice cores from the across the continent shows an extra 272bn tonnes of snow landed on Antarctica annually in the decade 2001-2010 compared with 1801-1810. The addition snow being locked up on Antarctica has helped slow the pace of global sea level rise, the researchers say, but it only slightly offsets the contribution that melting Antarctic ice makes to the oceans. The research was presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. The New Scientist and the MailOnline also have the story. In another piece on Antarctica, the BBC reports that a research ship will visit and study the Larsen C Ice Shelf, which last July calved one of the biggest icebergs ever recorded in Antarctica. The trip, slated for January and February next year, will also try to find the Endurance, the ship of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton that sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915. The BBC also has an interview with expedition leader Prof Julian Dowdeswell from the Scott Polar Research Institute. The Times also has the story.

The United Nations’ shipping agency is under pressure this week to agree on a plan to cut carbon emissions from the sector, following years of slow progress. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is meeting in London to develop a initial strategy to cut emissions, although a final plan is not expected until 2023. Reuters runs through the negotiating positions of some of the nations involved. A spokesman for the European Commission said EU countries, along with the Marshall Islands, support a goal of cutting emissions by 70 to 100% by 2050, compared with 2008 levels. But countries including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Panama are opposed to the EU’s proposal of a loftier target, sources say. Politico also points out that “there are deep fissures within the EU on the issue”. Meanwhile, UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa has urged countries to adopt an ambitious initial strategy, reports Climate Home News. “We are witnessing how climate change is moving much faster than emissions reductions,” she said before the meeting got underway. “I call upon all nations to adopt an ambitious initial strategy at the IMO that can critically contribute towards achieving the Paris Agreement goals, and at the same time be supportive of the sector’s sustainability.” A second story in Climate Home News reports that Arctic countries and indigenous communities are calling for a ban on ships burning heavy fuel oil in the region, extending a measure already imposed in Antarctica. BusinessGreen also covers the talks. Last week, Carbon Brief published an in-depth primer on the talks.

On Sunday, senior officials unveiled China’s newly-created Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The mega-department will absorb functions originally managed under other ministries and will see its staff increase from around 300 to 500. Its responsibilities will include climate change and emissions reduction policies, currently under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The news of the merger has received a mixed response, with some green groups hoping that it gives a coordinated emphasis on reducing greenhouse gases and improving air quality. However, others are concerned that moving climate policymaking from the once-powerful NDRC to an environment ministry will see it move lower in China’s cabinet power hierarchy.

Greenhouse gas emissions from cement production must be cut sharply if the world is to meet the climate change goals set out in the Paris Agreement, a new report says. Cement production accounts for 6% of global CO2 emissions, making it the second biggest source of carbon emissions from global industry, after steel. The report, from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), finds that leading cement companies would need to double their efforts to reduce emissions in order to meet the Paris climate goals. Indian companies were performing best on reducing their carbon footprint, the report says, partly because they benefit from newer and more efficient manufacturing plants.

Plans for a nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey have been delayed by concerns over the plant’s impact on colonies of protected seabirds. The proposed twin reactors at Wylfa were given the green light by the UK’s nuclear regulator in December, but its planning application has been postponed while the impact of building the power station on colonies of sandwich, Arctic and common terns is assessed. The company behind the plant, Horizon Nuclear Power, hopes to agree a way forward with Natural Resources Wales and proceed with its planning application by the end of June.

“From the day he walked into Congress as the nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt has been trying to foist a colossal lie on the American public,” writes Justin Gillis, former reporter for the New York Times, now author and contributing opinion writer. Pruitt’s position on climate change is essentially that we do not know enough about the risks to take any action, says Gillis. “This is not just any old white lie that Mr Pruitt has been telling,” counters Gillis. “This is a civilization-threatening lie, a lie that will kill people and destroy small nations, if not some large ones.” We do know enough about the risks, argues Gillis. “We know in exquisite physical detail what pouring CO2 into the air, something humans are doing with abandon, will do to the heat-trapping properties of the atmosphere. We know that the planet is warming at a rate with little known precedent in the geological record and that no natural factor can account for that warming.”

Extreme drought driven by climate change could cause tropical rainforest soils to release more carbon into the atmosphere, new research suggests. A study undertaken in Puerto Rico found that soil CO2 emissions rose by up to 163% in some regions during the 2015 drought. “The rapid response and slow recovery to drought suggest tropical forest biogeochemistry is more sensitive to climate change than previously believed, with potentially large direct and indirect consequences for regional and global carbon cycles,” the researchers conclude.

Using solar geoengineering to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels could lead to an overall decrease in fire risk across the world, a new study finds, but some areas could experience increased threats. Solar geoengineering is a term used to describe a group of hypothetical technologies that would lower global warming by reflecting more sunlight away from the Earth’s surface. The new research focuses on one proposed geoengineering technique whereby reflective aerosols are released into the stratosphere. It finds that injecting aerosols to limit temperature rise to 1.5C could lead to an increase in fire danger in parts of Asia and the US.