The US government will resume selling leases for new oil and gas drilling on public lands, the New York Times reports. The newspaper says that the Interior Department will “auction off leases to drill on 145,000 acres of public lands in nine states”. It adds: “In opening new land for drilling, while at the same time requiring companies to pay more to drill, Mr Biden appears to be trying to walk a line between trying to both lower gas prices and fight climate change.” The Guardian notes that the royalty rate for new leases will rise from 12.5% to 18.75% – marking the first increase in royalties for the federal government since they were first imposed in the 1920s. The Independent says the announcement has “brought condemnation from both ends of the political spectrum”. Meanwhile, Reuters notes that the announcement “could break a pledge Joe Biden made while campaigning for president” – as Biden told an audience in New Hampshire in February 2020 that there would be “no more drilling on federal lands, period”. CNBC notes that 80% less land was released than was “initially being evaluated for potential leasing”. Separately, the newswire says that drilling rights will be offered across at least states in June. Bloomberg also covers the announcement.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that Biden had planned to use the week leading up to Earth Day – on Friday 22 April – to provide updates on progress made to tackle climate change. Instead, the paper says that “senior US officials will this week be forced to defend Joe Biden’s record on combating climate change after a string of setbacks has thwarted the president’s sweeping agenda”. It also notes that Biden’s announcement breaks the moratorium on new oil and gas drilling projects that Biden implemented early in his presidency.

Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has called his “far-right opponent”, Marine Le Pen, a “climate sceptic”, Politico reports. Addressing a crowd of nearly 3,000 people, Macron “painted his opponent’s idea to dismantle wind farms and impose a moratorium on new wind and solar energy projects in France while building new nuclear power plants as out of touch and dangerous”, the outlet says. It continues: “It’s an effort to attract the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left candidate who came in a surprisingly strong third with 22% in last week’s first round. Mélenchon made climate and environmental issues a key part of his campaign, but so far he hasn’t encouraged his backers to support Macon. However, he has made it clear his voters should steer clear of Le Pen, saying they should ‘not give a single vote’ to her”. The paper adds that Macron is pitching a “green economy” and has “proposed building 50 offshore wind farms by 2030 and six new nuclear reactors”. Macron is “going to have to persuade sceptical voters he’d be a lesser environmental evil than Marine Le Pen”, Politico reports separately. While Reuters reports that, at a rally on Saturday, Macron promised to make France the “first great nation” to stop using oil, coal and gas as energy sources. He added: “Between coal and gas on one hand, and nuclear on the other, I choose nuclear.”

Elsewhere, the Financial Times focuses on Le Pen’s plans for wind energy, noting that onshore wind farms produce about 10% of French energy today. It adds: “Macron’s record on the environment is at best mixed in the eyes of green campaigners, who accuse him of not going far enough in cutting emissions or developing renewable energy. While he banned some short-haul domestic flights and upped incentives for electric cars and more efficient boilers, he also pushed back until 2050 a target to double onshore wind farm capacity, two decades later than originally envisaged.” In addition, the renewables industry has said that Le Pen’s energy programme “would represent a backward step”, Reuters reports. And Richard Kinley – president of the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability – has written in Energy Monitor that “it’s time for Macron to revive French leadership on EU climate goals”. For more on climate and energy policies in France, see Carbon Brief‘s country profile, published last week.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph has published a story – initially on the frontpage before being replaced after the first edition – reporting that “a green energy levy that adds £153 to the average energy bill could be scrapped to ease the cost of living crisis”. It says that government officials are examining whether the “controversial levies” – used to fund renewable energy subsidy schemes – could be “phased out gradually or dropped altogether by the autumn when bills are expected to soar”. A “Downing Street source” tells the paper that the government understood the strength of feeling on the backbenches about it and could see that scrapping the levy was an “attractive option that some are pushing”. The source added that dropping the levies would not happen any earlier than the autumn when it would be “one of several options”. They said: “We are a long way out from autumn and we wouldn’t rule anything out…We were balancing lots of objectives, including the climate objective…It wasn’t felt that it was the right thing to do in March. But we can’t rule out the situation being different later in the year.”

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that Conservative MP Steve Baker – a leading member of the Net-Zero Scrutiny Group, a small grouping of largely climate-sceptic backbenchers – has “shared a paper that says the climate emergency is not happening”. The outlet continues: “The non-peer-reviewed paper is authored by a retired scientist, Ole Humlum, a former professor at the University of Oslo. He has repeatedly claimed that rather than human impact, it is the sun and moon’s influence on Earth that explains most of the historical and current climate change. In 2013 he predicted that the climate would most likely become colder in the next 10 to 15 years. In the new report he claims that only ‘gentle warming’ has happened and that there is not a climate crisis.” Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph quotes the leader of Reform UK, so says that net-zero will be the “new Brexit for Tories”. Separately, the paper quotes Sir Jim Ratcliffe – head of energy company Ineos – who says that “Fracking can power Britain for 50 years”. The outlet continues: “Sources said that Ineos’s work shows shale gas reserves in Britain are as rich as those found in parts of the US, where fracking has helped turn the country into a net energy exporter and kept down prices at a time of surging costs in Europe.” (Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans notes on Twitter that the claim is based on a 2013 British Geological Survey survey, but ignores a more recent 2019 study saying fracking is more likely to yield less than five years of UK gas demand.)

The UK Labour party has accused Boris Johnson of a “shameful” failure to insulate homes and has pledged to insulate 2m houses within a year if elected, the Guardian reports. According to the newspaper, shadow energy secretary Ed Miliband said that, if elected, Labour will implement a decade-long £60bn plan to insulate homes – which could save households £400 on bills per year, eliminate Russian gas imports and support jobs. Separately, the Guardian has a piece entitled, “where Britain’s journey to insulation went wrong”. And the Independent covers the results of new analysis, which finds that “moves to slow the expansion of onshore wind farms in Britain could add as much as £125 to each household’s energy bills in the middle of next decade”.

In other UK news, the Guardian reports that a community group in Bristol has secured funding to build the tallest wind turbine in England. The Financial Times reports that “communities in Suffolk are threatening the UK government with legal action after business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng last month approved two controversial wind farms off England’s east coast”. According to the paper, the communities want “a more integrated approach to prevent onshore infrastructure blighting landscape”. The Guardian also reports that leading scientists have urged the government to build onshore wind on brownfield sites.

The Daily Telegraph reports that “installing solar panels on a property can add more than £3,000 to its value, but the devices still cost more than double that figure to purchase and install”. And a further Daily Telegraph piece quotes Sir John Armitt – the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission – who told the newspaper that sales of new boilers would need to be banned to convince people to switch to heat pumps. This comes as the i newspaper reports a 20% spike in demand for heat pumps since the start of the year.

Bloomberg reports that some Chinese regions are “at risk” of more power outages due to “virus curbs” and “weaker imports”. The outlet says that China’s coal imports “fell 24% on year” in the first quarter of 2022 and transport of the fuel has been “slowed” due to Covid-19 restrictions. Li Xuegang – vice president of the China Coal Transportation and Distribution Association – is quoted saying that “eight coastal provinces, including powerhouse Guangdong, are expected to see a growing shortfall of coal for industry and cooling needs”. Li added that China’s “push” for domestic miners to boost coal production has “reached its limits”, Bloomberg notes. (Carbon Brief has recently analysed China’s coal push.)

Meanwhile, a separate report from Bloomberg says that China’s banks are the “last big players” in coal company financing. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, China’s banks have “helped coal companies raise about $10bn selling bonds” so far in 2022. The amount doubles “$3.8bn raised in the same period of 2021” and marks “one of the busiest starts to a year” since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, the outlet says. Elsewhere, a Deutsche Welle feature focuses on China’s “sponge cities” – which, according to the outlet, “allow urban areas to absorb water in times of high rainfall and release it in times of drought”. The article explains how this “nature-based solution” can “help prevent flooding, promote biodiversity and cut emissions”. Separately, China’s energy import value – including crude oil, natural gas, food and other bulk commodities – showed “double-digit year-on-year growth” in the first quarter of 2022, the Global Times reports, citing data from China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC). The state-run newspaper notes that higher commodity prices have pushed up the value of imports, citing Li Kuiwen, a spokesperson of GAC.

This weekend has seen continued media coverage of climate protests. On Saturday, six people were arrested after activists – including two Olympic athletes – scaled an oil tanker in central London, the Guardian reports. “The incident was the latest in a coordinated series of Easter protests by demonstrators who are calling for a halt in all investment in fossil fuels in the UK,” the paper adds. It is not known if the two Olympians were among those arrested, BBC News notes. The Independent reports that protesters also climbed up pillars on London’s Marble Arch to hoist a green banner, reading “End fossil fuels now” on Saturday evening. The Metropolitan Police told the paper it had spent more than £565,000 policing the demonstrations since the beginning of the month. The Independent has published further articles about protests over the Easter weekend – including blocking main bridges in London, halting an oil tanker on the M4 and protesting over the link between oil and factory farming outside the headquarters of the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. According to Associated Press, more than 600 activists have been arrested over the past two weeks. The Conversation says that if protests lead to panic buying of petrol, they will “be even more disruptive”. The frontpage of the Sunday Express declares: “Punish eco mob now.” The paper has conducted a poll, which finds that “53% of respondents support tougher laws to tackle climate change yobs who block roads, cause damage and disrupt businesses and members of the public”. Meanwhile, the paper has published an opinion box featuring the results of the poll, which says that “attacking infrastructure is more akin to terrorism than protest”.

Elsewhere, the Guardian says that a group called “Culture Unstained” has written to the board of the British Museum, calling on it to end its BP sponsorship. The Independent reports that several oil firms – including ExxonMobil, Navigator Thames and Valero, have “secured civil injunctions aimed at stopping environmental protesters from targeting their fuel processing sites”. The Guardian reports that the Labour shadow justice secretary, Steve Reed, has supported calls for nationwide injunctions to stop protesters from blocking roads and fuel supplies. This has led to “an escalating internal row over the treatment of climate crisis protesters”, the paper says.

Elsewhere, the Independent has published a piece on Nasa scientist Peter Kalmus, who chained himself to a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles to protest the bank’s financing of fossil fuels. Following this protest, ecologist Emma Smart was detailed without bail, and is now on hunger strike, the Independent reports separately. The Guardian says that Smart was taken to hospital and was later released. Meanwhile Reuters reports that climate activists “forced the closure of a main square in central Paris on Saturday to protest against the environmental programmes put forward by France’s remaining presidential candidates”.

The Guardian covers new research that finds “rightwing populist parties have a detrimental impact on climate policy”. The study reviewed more than a decade of government policies in more than 25 countries, and found that “while rightwing populist parties had a negative impact on climate policy across the board, EU membership and proportional representation voting systems lessened the effect”, according to the newspaper. The Independent reports that, according to the study, rightwing populist parties can drive a 24% reduction in climate policy scores, while left-of-centre parties can cause a 22% increase. “Populist and nationalist politicians could switch their attention away from blaming immigration and focus more on climate and energy policies if the cost of living crisis continues to significantly impact the lives and finances of voters,” it adds.

In other new research, the New York Times reports that more than half of cactus species “could face greater extinction risk by midcentury” due to “rising heat and dryness”. Separately, the newspaper reports that “the rapid collapses of two ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last quarter-century were most likely triggered by the arrival of huge plumes of warm, moisture-laden air that created extreme conditions and destabilised the ice”. BBC News says that “scientists have mapped coral reefs in the Caribbean to identify those most likely to survive climate change”. And the Independent has published data showing the 10 areas of Britain expected to be the most at risk of flooding by 2050. Cardiff is top of the list, followed by Windsor and Maidenhead, the according to the outlet.

BBC News reports that German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck has called on the public “to cut energy use and stop using cars to help wean their country off Russian oil and gas”. In an interview with Funke media group, he said that “if you can take the train or bike over Easter, that’s good too: it’s easy on the wallet and annoys Putin”. Euraktiv adds Habeck’s quote: “Cutting 10% of individual energy consumption is possible, adding that employers could contribute by giving employees the option to work from home.” German tabloid Bild reports that Habeck’s confidante Klaus Müller, head of the Federal Network Agency, has further suggestions on how German citizens should change their lives, which include “a sauna ban, restrictions for single people to heat the apartments with several rooms, less heating with a maximum of 19C and changing in showering habits”.

Meanwhile, Der Spiegel reports on Habeck’s fracking plans in the same interview. He said: “In the North German lowlands we are sitting on a large amount of gas that can only be accessed with fracking. So you would have to destroy deep layers of rock with great pressure and chemical substances in order to extract the gas. This is difficult under water law because it can have negative consequences for our environment. At the moment there are no companies that want that.” Elsewhere in German media, Zeit online reports that “more wood was felled in German forests last year than ever before”. However, the news continues, “there was also a lot of damaged wood – damage from insects in particular is increasing”. Finally, Deutsche Welle reports that Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said during her West Africa tour that “urgent action is needed to combat hunger amid rising food prices and the devastating impact of climate change in Niger and other areas of the troubled Sahel region”.

The UK’s education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has announced that a new natural history GCSE will be launched next week, the Independent reports. It continues: “The Department for Education said that the qualification will allow pupils to learn about organisms and their environments, as well as environmental and sustainability issues ‘to gain a deeper knowledge of the natural world around them’.” The Times reports that the GCSE will be taught from September 2025 and Sky News notes that the new GCSE is “one of the first new qualifications to be announced since the exam system was reformed in 2017”. The Daily Telegraph adds: While the broad outline of the course has already been drawn up in Whitehall, officials will now work with exam boards and the exams regulator, Ofqual, to design a full curriculum and examinable topics for pupils that choose to take it.”

Ahead of Australia’s upcoming federal election in May, Angus Taylor – the Liberal party’s Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction – has claimed that “consumers would be $560 a year worse off under [the] Australian Labor Party’s electricity policy,” the Guardian reports. The paper continues: “[Taylor] issued a press release making the same claim, but the statement did not explain how the numbers were reached or who did the analysis. His office did not respond to a request for the modelling on Tuesday morning.” Elsewhere, the newspaper covers the results of a survey, which finds that “voters in the Liberal-held seat of North Sydney have ranked climate and the environment as a higher priority than the economy, while they see integrity in politics as narrowly more important than the cost of living”. Separately, the paper reports that Australia’s wholesale power costs are “soaring”. Meanwhile, the outlet says that the US will urge Australia to increase its 2030 climate pledge. And a new report finds that Australia has fallen from the 35th to 52nd position in global ranking of how different nations are responding to climate change, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The paper blames the country’s “climate change isolationism” for the fall, describing it as a “climate laggards”.

Guardian environment reporter Graham Readfearn has penned an opinion piece about the upcoming election. Angus Taylor claims that Labor “plans to force the nation’s top 200 largest energy users and producers to cut their aggregate emissions by 25% by 2030,” Readfearn says. He continues: “Taylor was referring to Labor’s plan to modify the Morrison government’s safeguard mechanism – a policy that was supposed to cap emissions from industrial facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent a year by requiring them to purchase carbon credits if they exceeded an emissions baseline… But is Labor planning to ‘force’ these companies (there are actually 212 of them currently) to cut their emissions by 25% by 2030? The short answer is no.”

Reuters reports that, according to sources familiar with the deliberations, Gina McCarthy is planning to step down from her position as White House climate adviser. The newswire says that “McCarthy has already delayed her departure, and told one Reuters source that she plans to leave as soon as next month”. However, the Washington Post quotes White House spokesman Vedant Patel, who said: “We have no personnel announcements to make. Gina and her entire team continue to be laser focused on delivering on President Biden’s clean energy agenda.” Similarly, the Hill quotes a tweet from McCarthy, who said: “Reports that I have resigned from my position as President Biden’s National Climate Advisor are simply inaccurate. We’ve made great progress these past 14 months, but we have much more work to do – and I remain excited about the opportunities ahead.” The New York Times says: “President Biden asked her to stay on, according to one person familiar with Ms. McCarthy’s plans. Others who have spoken with her in recent days said Ms. McCarthy had denied to them that she was leaving imminently and had told associates that she had no definite date in mind. She is expected to be succeeded by her deputy, Ali Zaidi.” The Guardian adds: “McCarthy’s position was a key demand by the liberal wing of the Democratic party and an illustration of Biden’s commitment to the cause. Not replacing her could be seen as a retreat by the environmental community.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must compel world leaders to do “what they have repeatedly failed to do in the past”, and “use the turmoil to make a shift to clean energy a security priority”, writes the Financial Times in an editorial. “Temporary fiscal transfers” for low income households, “sweeping energy efficiency measures” and an “unprecedented build-up of low carbon energy sources” will not be “cost-free”, the editorial says. But it warns readers that “any move that risks locking in new fossil fuel projects for decades to come is a mistake…the tragedy of the Ukraine war will be compounded if the impetus to accelerate the shift to greener and more secure energy is not seized”.

The war in Ukraine gives a further reason to produce more nuclear power, writes the South China Morning Post, adding that “the goal of a responsible government should be to generate energy that is safe, secure and clean”. The editorial cites the UK’s energy plan last month setting a target of “25% of power from nuclear”, and French president Emmanuel Macron’s plan for “up to 14 new reactors to help achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”. China, meanwhile, has “53 reactors, the third most in the world behind the United States and France, producing about 5% of national power needs”, and under new guidelines aims to boost nuclear power generation from “50 gigawatts to 70 by 2025”, the paper says.

The war could be “the catalyst for a safer and more climate-secure Germany”, writes Sherri Goodman, senior strategist and advisory board member at the Center for Climate and Security and former first US deputy undersecretary of defense, for Deutsche Welle. Germany should prioritise “immediate reductions in gas demand through energy efficiency” followed by an “all-hands-on-deck approach to the clean energy transition, Goodman says. And in the Daily Telegraph, international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes that “Olaf Scholz must choose between an energy embargo on Russia, or a moral embargo on Germany”. Germany made “a choice to increase its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons after the invasion of Crimea in 2014”, he says, adding: “It is being asked for a lesser sacrifice, and for a higher purpose: to halt slaughter on the EU’s doorstep is modest by comparison.”

Will Gardiner, chief executive of power generation firm Drax, writes in Times Red Box that it is “crucial” that the UK government supports negative emissions in the energy or carbon markets. He argues that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is “the most cost-effective carbon removal technology” and will “sustain and create tens of thousands of clean jobs in the north”. Drax has a BECCS project in North Yorkshire, notes Gardiner, which “could start capturing millions of tonnes of CO2 as soon as 2027”. Gardiner also writes that the UK needs more energy storage capacity. Conveniently, Drax “is ready to invest £500m expanding pumped storage hydro capacity at its Cruachan power station in Scotland”, he adds.

Also in the Times, Ryan Crighton – policy director at Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce – pens the Thunderer column, in which he says it is “crucial” that the Combo oilfield to the north-west of the Shetland Islands goes ahead. He argues: “Fields like Cambo are not increasing UK production, they are offsetting decades of decline and doing so with platforms that are more efficient.” He concludes: “We all want to get to the same net-zero destination, there is no one in denial about the direction of travel. All that needs to be agreed upon is the steps we take to get there and, importantly, the order in which we take them. Be in no doubt that oil and gas must, in the short-to-medium term, be part of that mix.” Karl Williams – senior researcher at the right-leaning thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies – writes in the Daily Telegraph that “British energy policy has been dogged for decade by political short-termism and fantasy numbers”. He also argues that the return to North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds is “welcome”.

In other climate-related comment in the UK, a Guardian editorial says that “recycling, refurbishing and retrofitting are the way forward” for the UK’s buildings, rather than demolishing them and starting again. Financial Times business columnist John Gapper writes that “Planting trees in Scotland will not fix climate change”. And Daily Telegraph business columnist Andrew Orlowski argues that the idea of hydrogen as a “green gas” is “not what it seems”. He writes: “Hydrogen has two big problems which turn any project into a dead whale exercise. The first is that pure hydrogen doesn’t exist – it’s both everywhere and nowhere. We must generate all the hydrogen we can then use, and this requires a lot of energy. This is fine when the output of the process is something very valuable to us, such as fertiliser. But less so when the output of the process must compete with much cheaper commodities, as it must in an energy market. Secondly, hydrogen’s intrinsic physical properties create a whole range of unique problems. It’s a tiny atom that easily escapes confinement. Keeping it captive for storage is expensive, and moving it around safely even more so, because in liquid form it must be very cold.”

In the Guardian, Laurie Laybourn – an environmental policy researcher and author – reflects on last week’s Nature study that suggests that meeting the most recent net-zero pledges could keep global warming below 2C. This progress “shows that the battle for countries and companies to sign up to net-zero is being won”, Laybourn says. He notes: “This momentum is the result of decades of cumulative awareness-raising, tireless campaigning and political manoeuvring. The recent explosion in activism has been a crucial factor. It was equally hard to imagine global school strikes, Extinction Rebellion and a green new deal a few years ago. They changed the narrative, inspired by the successes – and failures – of those who came before.”

Taking a different view on climate activists, German historian and author Rainer Zitelmann writes in the Daily Telegraph that “Extinction Rebellion is wrong – capitalism is not to blame for climate change”. He quotes research by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank based in Washington DC, which suggests countries with economic freedom do better on “environmental health and ecosystem vitality”. He concludes: “There is a very strong argument that, even in terms of climate change and environmental degradation, capitalism is not the problem, it’s the solution.” In The Sunday Telegraph, Annabel Denham – director of communications at the libertarian Institute of Economic Affairs – writes that “true Tories have nothing in common with Extinction Rebellion zealots”.

Der Spiegel carries a comment piece from journalist Bernhard Pötter who doubts that the German government will achieve its climate goals. He writes that “the federal government promises that Germany will be climate-neutral in 23 years, but it is primarily the federal states that have to implement this – but there are no concepts or sensible plans”. The author asks a question whether climate neutrality in 23 years can be achieved, given that “German greenhouse gas emissions rose by 4.5% in 2021, although they should fall. Instead of the promised drop of 40% compared to 1990, Germany only managed 38.7% in 2021 – mathematically small numbers, but they show glaring gaps in climate policy”.

Climate change could become “a primary driver of cactus extinction risk” for many species of cactus across North and South America, a new study warns. The authors note that “a common perception is that future climates will be favourable to cacti as they have multiple adaptations and specialised physiologies and morphologies for increased heat and drought”. However, their assessment of 408 cactus species under three emissions scenarios for 2050 and 2070 shows that “60% of species will experience a reduction in favourable climate, with about a quarter of species exposed to environmental conditions outside of the current realised niche in over 25% of their current distribution”. This suggests that the number of cactus species at risk from climate change “is projected to increase sharply in the future, especially in current richness hotspots”.