Staff at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been told that Donald Trump is preparing a handful of executive orders to reshape the agency, to be signed once a new administrator is confirmed, perhaps this Friday, according to two sources who attended the meeting and who spoke to Reuters. “It was just a heads-up to expect some executive orders, that’s it,” one of the sources said. The second source said attendees at the meeting were told Trump would sign between two and five executive orders. The Hill also picks up a (paywalled) report on Inside EPA that says Trump will attend a swearing-in ceremony for Scott Pruitt, if confirmed, at the EPA headquarters next week. “At that event, an administration source told Inside EPA that Trump will sign executive orders related to the agency’s climate work and that they could ‘suck the air out of the room,’ according to the report…One executive order, according to Inside EPA’s report, could be aimed at the State Department, suggesting Trump will take a position on the United States’s participation in the Paris climate deal.”

Companies vying to build nuclear power stations in the UK have been told they must offer a price for their electricity sharply lower than that approved for the Hinkley Point plant last year, reports the FT. The paper says that government officials have indicated that future projects will be expected to deliver a “discount of at least 15-20 % on the price of electricity from the £18bn Hinkley plant in Somerset”. The FT adds: “One senior figure in the nuclear industry said government had made clear that NuGen and Horizon must agree a ‘significantly’ lower price than the £92.50/Mwh promised to EDF, the French utility, for electricity from Hinkley Point for 35 years. The Hinkley strike price is now worth about £100/Mwh because it was set in 2012 and linked to inflation. ‘They don’t want a number beginning with nine. They would like a number beginning with seven,’ said the industry figure…Another senior industry figure said he expected a figure around £85/Mwh.” The Times reports that the Institution of Mechanical Engineers says that a transition to a replacement state body for the control of the nuclear industry ought to be a top priority during Brexit negotiations. The Times says the engineers argue that the government must start urgently to lay out how it plans to leave the European body overseeing nuclear co-operation to avoid scuppering the new nuclear programme. Meanwhile, the Press Association reports that “Labour and Tory by-election candidates for Copeland have locked horns over whether the government should underwrite investment into the planned Moorside nuclear power station”. Carbon Brief has published analysis examining how important Moorside is to the UK’s climate plans.

The European Commission has sent a “final warning” to the UK over breaches of air pollution limits, reports the BBC. It said limits had been repeatedly exceeded in 16 areas including London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow. Germany, France, Spain and Italy were also served with warnings over nitrogen dioxide levels. The commission said if countries did not take action within two months it could take the matter to the European Court of Justice. The Times says: “The court can impose large fines, either as a lump sum or a daily penalty, for as long as the infringement lasts. The amount is calculated according to the severity of the breach and the size of the country. Theresa May’s government is preparing to publish a draft air-quality plan in April, within the commission’s deadline, after its previous plan was ruled inadequate by the High Court last year.” Meanwhile, an editorial in the Sun blames the pollution on Gordon Brown’s environmental policies: “There’s no clearer example of the chaos and confusion caused by crackpot climate change policies. For 15 years motorists were told buying diesel cars would help the environment. As Chancellor, Gordon Brown even cut taxes to encourage motorists to go green…Diesel owners and van drivers must not pay for politicians’ rank incompetence.”

The Scottish National Party’s plans to increase the amount of woodland in Scotland in an attempt to fight climate change risks damaging the nation’s “dramatic open views and vistas”, according to mountaineering and gamekeepers groups. The Scottish government has proposed increasing the amount of woodland cover from 17% to 25% by 2050, with a commitment to planting 10,000 extra hectares of trees between now and 2022 included in its draft Climate Plan. But Mountaineering Scotland and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) are concerned that the changes could damage the nation’s wild moorland. The Guardian and Times are among the others papers carrying the story.

The man tipped as frontrunner for the role of science adviser to Donald Trump has described climate scientists as “a glassy-eyed cult” in the throes of a form of collective madness in an interview with the Guardian. William Happer, a particle physicist at Princeton University and notoriously out-spoken climate sceptic who believes pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere would be beneficial, met Trump last month to discuss the post and says that if he were offered the job he would take it. Happer also supports a controversial crackdown on the freedom of federal agency scientists to speak out about their findings, arguing that mixed messages on issues such as whether butter or margarine is healthier, have led to people disregarding all public health information. The Guardian has produced a video showcasing Happer’s extreme views on climate science. Happer has also been interviewed by Andy Revkin for ProPublica.

As G20 foreign ministers meet to prepare for a climate change summit in Hamburg in July, managers of funds with assets totalling more than $2.8 trillion – more than the entire annual GDP of the UK – are calling for leading economies to phase out fossil fuel subsidies within the next three years to avert a catastrophe, according to the Independent. “Many members of the group, which includes Aegon Asset Management, Aviva Investors, Legal and General and Trillium, hold significant investments in fossil fuel companies but said a clear policy signal that clean energy will be backed would give them the confidence to shift their billions into renewables.”

The UK may use its faster-than-average emissions cuts for leverage in negotiations to leave the EU, according to a foreign office climate envoy. Under domestic legislation, Britain is set to slash greenhouse gases 57% from 1990 levels by 2030, going deeper than the bloc-wide target of “at least” 40%. That gives poorer member states space for some carbon-fuelled growth. The Brexit department is considering this as a bargaining chip to gain other advantages as it thrashes out a different relationship with the country’s 27 neighbours, the UK’s permanent special representative for climate change David King told Climate Home.

Butler says that because private investors avoid the nuclear power sector – for a variety of reasons – governments should step up. For example, he says: “The UK government should put capital into any new nuclear projects that it wants to see developed. The terms for this investment should be tough. Britain could offer the last slice of any funding required in return for a substantial share of the project, giving the companies involved every incentive to keep costs down and to minimise their call on public money…Public funds would be focused on the construction phase — the period of greatest risk — and would result in the creation of an asset that would be monetised once that phase was completed.”

The Mail columnist says that that the “plight of Toshiba reminds us yet again that nuclear power has consistently failed to live up to its potential”. He adds: “The construction costs are too high and the long-term liabilities too uncertain. Renewables will pass nuclear as a source of energy in about ten years’ time.” But this won’t help the UK, adding “though wind and solar will chip in a bit. He continues: “So, if as seems inevitable the UK nuclear programme disappoints yet again, how do we keep the lights on?…It will be another dash for gas. But it isn’t yet politic to admit it.”

A new study has found that the global ocean oxygen content has dropped by 2% since 1960, partly as a result of a fall in the solubility of oxygen as sea water has warmed. With ocean models predicting a further drop between 1% and 8% by 2100, the scientists say the change could affect ocean nutrients and the marine habitat, with potentially detrimental consequences for fisheries and coastal economies.