US Democrats have found that “big oil” has privately acknowledged its efforts to “downplay the dangers” of burning fossil fuels, the Guardian reports. Documents revealed by a House oversight committee show that while major fossil-fuel firms have pledged support for international climate efforts, they have internally admitted that these efforts are incompatible with their own climate plans, it adds. These companies have lobbied against climate laws and regulations they have publicly supported, the article continues. The tranche of subpoenaed communications was unveiled to the committee on Tuesday, with the chair Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse saying: “For decades, the fossil-fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products but has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600bn each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits,” the article states. The Washington Post reports on one example of a 2018 exchange showing that an ExxonMobil executive downplayed the impact of the Paris Agreement on the company’s plans for continued fossil fuel production. The oil giant in 2015 voiced support for the agreement, but Pete Trelenberg, Exxon’s manager of environmental policy and planning, wrote off the limit to keep warming to “well below” 2C and ideally 1.5C, arguing they should not influence internal decision-making on exploration or production, the newspaper says.

EU regulators have opened an investigation into 20 airlines over their use of potentially “misleading greenwashing practices”, reports the Financial Times. The European Commission has written to the airlines and to national consumer protection authorities “identifying several types of potentially misleading green claims”, it continues. While the airlines in question have not been named, the national regulators involved are Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish, the FT adds. The regulators key concern is that airlines have claimed that carbon emissions from flying can be offset either through investments in environmental projects or the use of more sustainable jet fuels, which still emit carbon when they are burned, but are less polluting than the kerosene currently used, it explains. (See Carbon Brief’s explainer of carbon offsetting for further reading.) Additionally, the bloc has invited the companies to bring their practices in line with EU consumer law within 30 days, Al Jazeera reports. The article quotes EU commissioner for values and transparency Vera Jourova, who said “if we want responsible consumers, we need to provide them with accurate information” and added that consumers “deserve accurate and scientific answers, not vague or false claims”.

There is continuing coverage of G7 energy and environment ministers committing to phase out coal power by 2035, marking the first time the group has explicitly referred to a phase-out, reports the Associated Press. The final communique from the G7 meeting in the Italian city of Turin left some flexibility for countries heavily reliant on coal and included language that could extend the 2035 deadline to a “timeframe consistent with limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C” above pre-industrialised levels, it says. The communique marks a “key climate milestone” for the G7 nations – the UK, US, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Japan – who had previously been unable to reach an agreement on phasing out coal despite several years of talks, reports the Guardian. It quotes Italian environment and energy security minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who chaired the meeting, as saying: “It is the first time that a path and a target has been set on coal.” Allowing the caveat that countries could extend the timeline in a manner in-line with their net-zero pathways was included to “grant room for manoeuvre to Germany and Japan” sources tell Reuters. In light of the impact of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine on Europe’s fuel security, it also offers flexibility in case of a new, unexpected conflict, Fratin noted, it reports. The text leaves open the possibility of continued investment in gas, despite ministers agreement to transition away from all fossil fuels by 2050 at the UN COP28 climate summit last year, notes the Financial Times. The FT quotes Luca Bergamaschi, co-founding director of Italian climate thinktank ECCO, who said the “real litmus test for the credibility of the G7 rested on its planning to shift from gas to renewable energy”. This means reducing public support for new gas investment “after two years of record high industry profits and no evidence that Europe needs new infrastructure for its energy security”, Bergamaschi added. Similarly, Jane Ellis, head of climate policy at Climate Analytics, tells Climate Home News: “It’s notable that gas has not been mentioned [in the G7 ministerial agreement]. This is absolutely the wrong direction to be heading in – both economically and for the climate.” This story was also covered by AFP, the Times of India and others.

At least 143 people have died in Pakistan from lightning strikes and other storm-related incidents in April, reports Le Monde. The country has received more than twice as much rain as usual for the month, bringing about flash floods, landslides and inclement weather, which has caused houses to collapse in some areas and destroyed crops in others, it continues. Zaheer Ahmad Babar, spokesperson for the Pakistan Meteorological Department told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Pakistan saw a rainfall “increase of 164% above the normal levels in April, which is very unusual,” the article adds. The largest death toll was in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where 83 people died, including 38 children, and more than 3,500 homes were damaged, the article continues. Harvests of wheat were spoiled by hailstorms in northern parts of Punjab and several people – including farmers out harvesting the wheat – were killed by lightning, with a total of 21 people killed in different rain-related incidents in April, it notes.

Elsewhere, the Daily Mail reports that olive oil prices have nearly doubled due to the impacts of drought, along with the pests and “ruthless criminal gangs”, in an article trailed on its frontpage. Rainfall is essential for olive formation and Spain has been experiencing severe drought since 2022, it explains. Olive groves are “drying up” with the heatwave in May 2023 burning the olive tree flowers and destroying the crop, the article explains. 

New research warns that the Indian Ocean “is experiencing unprecedented and accelerated warming” and could warm at a rate of 1.7-3.8C per century “unless greenhouse gases (GHGs) are reduced immediately”, Down to Earth reports. “The future increase in heat content is equivalent to adding the energy of one Hiroshima atomic bomb detonation every second, all day, every day, for a decade,” Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist and lead author of the work – which forms the chapter of a new book – tells the outlet. Marine heatwave days “are expected to rise” from 20 to 220-250 a year, meaning that “most of the Indian Ocean could be in a near-permanent state of marine heatwave conditions”, the story says. Inc​​reasing marine heatwaves could cause tropical cyclones to intensify rapidly, “putting fisheries and people living along the coastline at risk”, Mongabay India writes, reporting on the same research. “If we want to convey the seriousness of this issue, we need to add one more category of category 6 cyclones to warn people appropriately,” Madhavan Rajeevan, India’s former Earth sciences secretary, tells the outlet. 

Meanwhile, forest fires are raging across India, with 75,000 fires reported in April, according to the Hindustan Times. The eastern states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh and the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand are among the worst affected, with a senior forest official telling the paper that a “warmer-than-usual April and drier winter this year are the reasons for sudden spurt”. Uttarakhand has “experienced 108 forest fires in the past 72 hours, damaging more than 142 hectares of forest”, with “scanty winter rain” playing a major role in the 6,701 blazes that broke out in the hill state last month, another Hindustan Times story reports.

In energy news, Mint reports that electricity generation by Indian coal-fired power plants running on imported coal “has nearly doubled in the first three weeks of April from a year earlier as global prices of the polluting fuel have declined by about 30%…primarily because of an oversupply in China”. At the same time, Moneycontrol reports that the state-run mining firm Coal India “may be staring at a massive demand shortfall going forward”, with an internal coal ministry report estimating that demand from its existing buyers could “sharply drop by as much as 20-58%” after privately-operated coal mines come into production.

Finally, in the aftermath of a landmark decision on climate change by India’s supreme court, Business Standard looks at “what would it mean to have [climate] legislation” in India, while Bar & Bench describes the verdict as the top court’s “very own Sophie’s Choice moment”.

China’s new climate chief, Liu Zhenmin, has told Bloomberg TV that he plans to visit the US in May, with the aim to “extend cooperation on issues including energy, the circular economy and efforts to curb greenhouse gases beyond carbon dioxide”. Bloomberg reports: “Special envoy for climate change Liu Zhenmin will take a delegation from different Chinese ministries to Washington, DC, for a first formal face-to-face meeting with US counterpart John Podesta…China will aim to extend cooperation on issues including energy, the circular economy and efforts to curb greenhouse gases beyond carbon dioxide, Liu said.”

Meanwhile, State news agency Xinhua reports that China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urges the US to stop “hyping up the false narrative of ‘China’s overcapacity’” and to cease using “unfair and non-market means” to suppress the development of China’s new energy industry. In another report, Xinhua says that the Political Bureau of Chinese communist party’s Central Committee – the most powerful group in China – has emphasised the need to strengthen “clean and efficient” utilisation of coal as well as “solidly promote green and low-carbon [energy] development”. 

Elsewhere, BBC News reports that according to its calculations, Chinese companies now have a stake in at least 62 mining projects across the world, which are “designed to extract either lithium or one of three other minerals key to green technologies – cobalt, nickel and manganese”. The outlet adds that all of these minerals are used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). Bloomberg’s analysis of China’s “new three” – battery, EV and solar panel – says that despite the country’s cheap shipments spurring complaints worldwide about overcapacity, “Chinese dominance in these three sectors is unlikely to be challenged”, but the rising trade tensions may “affect trade flows and push some Chinese producers of the goods to invest overseas”.

In other news, Reuters reports that Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, has met the president of the German association of the automotive industry, Hildegard Müller, in a meeting in which they discussed the EU’s investigation into Chinese auto industry subsidies. The newswire adds that Wang reiterated China’s objection to the probe before encouraging German automakers to continue investing in China. The Financial Times publishes an opinion article by Michael Pettis, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, arguing that “excess Chinese capacity in targeted industrial sectors is one area of contention. Excess Chinese savings driven by the suppression of domestic demand is another issue”, adding “these excess savings represent the suppression of domestic wages, and thus domestic demand, to achieve global competitiveness”. Economic news outlet Caixin quotes Ouyang Minggao, a professor at Tsinghua University, saying that China’s hydrogen-electrolyser makers “may become the country’s fourth-largest new energy export”, following solar panels, lithium batteries and electric vehicles. 

Finally, Xinhua reports that China’s meteorological authority has issued a yellow alert for severe convective weather on Tuesday, forecasting that short and heavy rainfall will batter southern China, with hourly precipitation of over 80mm hitting Guangdong province, where it has already suffered from weeks-long flooding. 

Following a speech given by Claire Coutinho, the UK’s secretary of state for energy security and net-zero, at the Innovation Zero conference in London yesterday, BusinessGreen has published her words in full. In the speech – previews of which have already been reported – Coutinho argued that the government “must not let central net-zero planning crush our brilliant enterprise”. She said that the government “has a role to play in making sure our industries and citizens are ready for the future, but we shouldn’t forget that our main role is to remove barriers and create the right market conditions for capital to flow”. She continued: “While we’ve done more to attract investment and press our competitive advantages, you will have seen that when it comes to the cost of living for people – whether it’s their cars or their boilers – we’ve chosen to give people more time.” Coutinho also noted: “After all, as proud as I am of Britain’s record to tackle emissions, we are less than 1% of global emissions and our bigger contribution to tackling climate change will come from innovation.” [The 1% figure does not include emissions generated elsewhere in the world for UK imports or the UK’s historical responsibility for emissions.] In a comment article (not yet online) responding to the speech, Daily Telegraph assistant editor Jeremy Warner writes that “the Con­ser­vat­ives are tak­ing the pub­lic for fools by com­plain­ing about the costs of net-zero”. 

Elsewhere in comment, Hannah Ritchie, deputy editor and lead researcher at Our World in Data, speaks on the New York Times’ The Ezra Klein Show about whether sustainability without sacrifice is truly possible.

The amount of CO2 lost from thawing permafrost soils becomes stronger when the ground undergoes abrupt “thermokarst” thaw, new experiments suggest. The study conducts tests by “experimentally warming three thermo-erosion gullies in an upland thermokarst site” and “incubating soils from five additional thermokarst-impacted sites on the Tibetan Plateau”. The results show that warming-induced increase in soil CO2 release is around 5.5 times higher in thermokarst features than the surrounding non-thermokarst landforms.