The EU’s 2040 climate target will be delayed until later in the year, but “before summer”, while the European Commission’s climate lead Wopke Hoekstra “struggles to find support for the pledge to slash emissions”, according to Politico. A draft law was originally expected in the first quarter of 2025, it adds. However, Hoekstra said the target had faced concerns from some groups in the European Parliament and that he had “discussed ways to water down the EU’s plan to cut emissions 90% below 1990 levels by 2040”, the article explains. Nevertheless, he told journalists that he was “optimistic” that 90% would remain the final target. Politico explains that the goal has faced criticism from the centre-right European People’s Party – “the largest political group in the European Parliament, which holds the swing vote” – as well as some governments, such as Italy’s, calling for it to be reduced to as low as 80%. Bloomberg reports that Poland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency and has elections next month, has also pushed to delay the proposal. The news outlet says the EU is also facing pressure to submit a new “nationally determined contribution” to the UN, which would set out its emissions goal for 2035. The idea is to simply derive this from the EU’s 2040 trajectory, but Bloomberg says the delay “means the window to do so has become increasingly tight for the EU”. The article says the EU is facing “competing priorities”, such as US president Donald Trump’s tariffs and pressure to increase defence spending. The article notes that a communication last year suggested that “carbon capture and storage was expected to do much of the heavy lifting in meeting the 2040 climate goal, but Hoekstra said alternatives may be more cost effective”. The EU has vowed not to backtrack on its climate commitments, but following pressure from industry “agreed this month to loosen CO2-cutting rules for carmakers”, according to Reuters. Adolfo Urso, Italy’s industry minister, has told parliament that his country would ask the EU to immediately suspend rules to slash the bloc’s industry emissions in the aftermath of Trump’s tariffs, Reuters reports. 

Meanwhile, China and the EU have agreed to restart negotiations on electric-vehicle tariffs, “coming hot on the heels of Trump’s announcement of more tariffs”, the Wall Street Journal reports. And Euractiv says Germany is seeking “to detach from [the] US as an energy supplier”, after investing in liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals to import gas from overseas.

The US reciprocal tariffs on China will have “limited impact” on its solar industry as “hardly any Chinese solar products” have been shipped directly to the US over recent years due to existing trade restrictions, financial media Yicai reports. But the tariffs will “have an effect” on exports from south-east Asia, the main supplier of the US solar cells and modules where Chinese companies have been “building up significant capacity”, the journal adds. Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) quotes an analyst saying the tariffs could “subtract up to 2.5 percentage points from China’s growth”. China’s Ministry of Commerce says that “China firmly opposes this and will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests”, reports Bloomberg. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has criticised the reciprocal tariffs as a “typical unilateral bullying tactic”, the Communist party-affiliated Beijing Youth Daily reports. 

In related comment, Yasir Masood, a Beijing-based Pakistani analyst, writes in the SCMP that China is “reaffirming [its] role as a stabilising force in Asia and a proponent of multilateral frameworks in the face of growing US tariffs, intensifying climate constraints and fragmented global trade dynamics”. The state-run newspaper China Daily publishes an editorial under the headline: “Global trade threatened by US’ tariff tantrum.” And a Xinhua comment says Washington’s “tariff obsession” will risk “leaving the US sidelined as the global economy moves forward without it”. 

Meanwhile, the NDRC explains to business newspaper Daily Economic News that the new “opinions” on pricing mechanisms from Beijing’s top-level offices are for a better market-oriented economy. (See yesterday’s Daily Briefing for more.) The outlet also quotes energy expert Lin Weibin saying that one of the important elements is to have a “unified national electricity market”. (The latest issue of China Briefing has more details on the policy.) The NDRC has also launched a public consultation on the second batch of “green and low-carbon advanced technology demonstration projects”, reports industry news outlet BJX News. 

Elsewhere, Reuters says China plans to launch vehicle-to-grid pilot projects in Chinese cities “to shore up power supply on the grid during spikes in demand”. The 21st Century Business Herald says that as the national ETS expands to include aluminium, more emissions quotes are needed. The Chinese government is “pushing for the increased uptake of heat pumps” through measures such as subsidies to “reduce carbon emissions and support the country’s green energy goals”, Yicai reports.

In other news, Chinese president Xi Jinping has called for the “expansion, development and protection” of the country’s “greens”, Xinhua reports. His top political advisor Wang Huning, has also urged stronger “eco-environmental conservation of the Yangtze River”, Xinhua says in a separate report.

Following US president Donald Trump’s introduction of sweeping global tariffs, the Independent reports on “fears that the ripple effects could show in sectors like clean energy, where supply chains depend heavily on global trade”. While the US renewable energy sector is “already facing headwinds”, the article cites experts who say the global clean energy transition is “expected to continue largely unaffected”. It notes that emerging and developing economies are expected to make up a large portion of renewable energy growth over the next few years. (Carbon Brief recently published an article full of expert insights into how Trump’s tariffs and the responses from other countries could affect global climate action and energy flows.) Bloomberg looks at “what we know so far” about how tariffs are impacting the global energy transition. It notes, for example, that “China will export more clean tech” to low- and middle-income countries. Ultimately, the article says that “nobody wins” because “the world needs to speed up the energy transition to avert the worst impacts of climate change, not throw up hurdles”. Mint reports that Indian solar manufacturers “may have a competitive advantage” over rivals in China and Vietnam, after the US imposed lower tariffs on Indian products. Back in the US, the tariffs could “hobble” the development of battery storage at renewable energy facilities, according to the New York Times. It notes that the majority of US lithium-ion batteries are imported, with 69% of those imports coming from China last year.

The New York Times says the renewable energy industry in the US is “bracing for particularly large effects”. It also notes that retaliatory tariffs from the EU and China on US fossil fuels “might put a further dent in those exports”.  The New York Times Climate Forward newsletter is headlined: “Trump’s tariffs could threaten his ‘energy dominance’ agenda.” It states: “Higher costs for US energy producers, including more expensive materials, could throw cold water on the ‘drill, baby, drill’ philosophy Trump has championed. And the effect of the new levies could stymie efforts to expand renewables domestically.” Another New York Times story explains that eight members of the OPEC+ oil group, led by Saudi Arabia, have announced they would accelerate their schedule to add about 2.2m barrels a day to the oil market. The article says the decision “could be seen as a gesture to Mr Trump, who has sought to lower gas prices for American consumers”.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the US and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are moving ahead with a minerals and security partnership, which would see the US invest in the country’s mining industry in exchange for security assistance against a rebel group in eastern DRC. (See Carbon Brief’s country profile of the DRC for details of its mineral wealth, which is vital for the global production of clean technologies.)

The government has approved expansion plans at Luton airport, including a new terminal, BBC News reports. The airport “hopes to almost double annual passenger numbers to 32m by 2043”, but it faces criticism from environmental campaigners, the article says. Campaign group the Aviation Environment Federation said the move was a “dangerous gamble” that ignored advice from government advisors at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and would threaten the UK’s net-zero goal, the Daily Telegraph says. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said earlier this year that airport expansion was compatible with the government’s net-zero target, explaining that the UK would see “cleaner and greener flying” through “sustainable” aviation fuels, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper explains that the Labour government has “swung behind airport expansion in a bid to boost economic growth”, including a potential third runway at Heathrow and future plans to approve Gatwick expansion. [Carbon Brief analysis from earlier this year found that the UK would need to plant a forest twice the size of Greater London to cancel out the extra emissions from the proposed expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports.] The Times describes the decision as being “forced through by ministers” after the Planning Inspectorate “had recommended a flat rejection of the scheme”. The story is covered widely, including by the Independent, Sky News, Guardian, Standard and Spectator.

Meanwhile, the Times has an article about Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), who told the Lords environment and climate change committee about the CCC’s most recent advice to the government on flying. Pinchbeck explained that one aim would be to persuade those taking multiple flights each year to take one less via measures such as a “frequent-flyer levy”, rather than “taking that flight off low-income households”, the newspaper reports. The MailOnline also covers the story, under the headline: “Make rich pay more to fly so poor families can still go on summer holiday, says net zero tsar”. 

In more UK news, BusinessGreen covers a new report from trade body Solar Energy UK that lays out how solar power and battery storage sectors “are expected to almost triple their annual contribution to the UK economy to £5.1bn by 2035”. Another report, produced by the Aldersgate group and also covered by BusinessGreen, finds that the UK needs to address its high electricity costs in order to drive low-carbon industrial transformation. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph has a story about how a new solar farm “threatens one of Britain’s oldest roads”. The Times also covers the story, about a project near the village of Long Sutton in Hampshire. The article headline takes a quote from Lars Mosesson, a local Green Party candidate, who claims if the solar farm is built “it won’t be a rural village any more, it will be a concentration camp”. Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru politician Adam Price has warned of “civil unrest” in rural Wales if a company pushes ahead with its plans to build electricity pylons, BBC News reports. The Financial Times says the rejection of a “megafarm” by local councillors in Norfolk concerned about its climate impact marks “a test of whether a court ruling over oil and gas projects should be applied to the food industry”. Meanwhile, BBC News reports that a decision could be made to determine whether British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant remains open “within the next few days”.

A heatwave that hit Central Asia in March, with temperatures close to 30C in low-lying areas of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, was intensified by climate change, according to new research covered by the Financial Times. The “frankly bonkers” temperatures were between 5C and 10C above pre-industrial levels, according to the new study by the World Weather Attribution group, the article notes. It explains that “climate change was responsible for at least 4C of that warming”. Agence France-Presse reports that the heatwave coincided with “a crucial agricultural season, when almonds, apricots and cherries bloom and wheat is sowed”.

Separately, the Independent reports on droughts in Zambia and Zimbabwe that have affected electricity production at the Kariba Dam hydroelectric plant. This, in turn, has led to an increase in demand for coal power.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on a statement made on LinkedIn by Günther Thallinger, a board member of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. Thallinger wrote that “we are fast approaching temperature levels – 1.5C, 2C, 3C – where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks”, according to the newspaper. He notes that, at 3C of warming, climate impacts cannot be insured against: “The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable.” The article is reported under the headline: “Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer.”

While Germany’s newly elected CDU/CSU government pushes for a return to nuclear energy, plant operators RWE and E.ON oppose the idea “unless the state covers the costs”, reports Merkur. In addition, potential CDU/CSU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, have not endorsed this proposal, notes the outlet. The story highlights that Martin Pache, Germany head of the US nuclear power company Westinghouse, expressed interest in Germany’s nuclear revival, noting that he sees “no reason why the lifespan of nuclear power plants (NPPs) couldn’t be extended by another 20 years”. The article says the CDU/CSU’s working group paper calls for a “technical assessment” of the remaining nuclear power plants. It details that one proposal is to use state-controlled Uniper as the operator of restarted nuclear plants. In an interview with WirtschaftsWoche, the CEO of Germany’s third-largest energy company EnBW, which operates the phased-out Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant, Georg Stamatelopoulos, said that “the dismantling of the plant is so far advanced that a quick solution is unthinkable…Restarting would take five to seven years and cost a great deal of money”. Frankfurter Rundschau quotes Germany’s environment minister Steffi Lemke dismissing plans by Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU faction to restart decommissioned nuclear power plants, calling them “detached from reality”. 

Former UK Conservative environment secretary Theresa Villiers sets out in the Spectator why the Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch should not abandon the nation’s net-zero target. “Kemi Badenoch was correct in her recent speech to challenge the way we forge a path to clean energy,” she writes. However, Villiers says that she hopes the “policy commission” Badenoch has launched will recommend maintaining the net-zero goal. “Kemi’s policy commission should consider the cost of climate change, not just the cost of net-zero. Her speech expressed understandable concern about the cost of decarbonisation, but this needs to be weighed against the huge financial damage that will be caused if global heating continues unchecked,” she says. Villiers notes that, ultimately, renewables will provide lower energy costs “than fossil fuels controlled by petrostates and dictators”. She says that the Conservatives can provide a “distinctive centre-right alternative to [Labour energy secretary] Ed Miliband’s big state, big spending approach”, noting that “green” policies are popular in the UK and will ultimately help the party trace a path back to power.

Meanwhile, Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environmental Network, writes in Conservative Home that he also agrees with many of the problems identified by Badenoch, such as high costs and “too much reliance on Chinese imports”. In response, he says the Conservative should “challenge the flaws in Labour’s expensive and statist policies, but offer an honest and ambitious alternative”. Hall says that his network have published their views on this in a document titled “market-led green growth”. Among other things, he dismisses Labour’s plan to achieve net-zero electricity by 2030 and support renewables through the state-backed Great British Energy. He adds: “Our paper calls on the government to pull a range of levers to bring down electricity prices, from radically reforming planning and regulation to make it much cheaper to build new infrastructure, to reducing the taxes we put on electricity through the levies.”

Finally, in a rare editorial complementing Labour, the Sun commends the government for approving the expansion of Luton airport. It says: “NIMBY green campaigners are enjoyably outraged at the tide turning against them and towards growth.” And an article by Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir about activist group Just Stop Oil takes aim at the government’s “blind devotion to net-zero”, which, she says, is “harming the UK’s self-sufficiency and crushing its economic growth”.

Mark Lutes, senior global climate policy advisor at WWF International, has an article in Climate Home News previewing talks at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) next week, which are expected to put the global shipping sector on course to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. He writes that if countries agree on new measures at the talks, shipping companies will have to transition to low-carbon fuels or alternative power sources over the next 25 years – “essentially a fossil fuel phase-out in the sector”. Lutes writes: “This is both necessary and possible, bringing both environmental benefits and long-term certainty and sustainability to the industry.” He explains that “the most politically challenging issue” has been deciding on some kind of carbon price for the shipping sector, with revenues that could support low-carbon ships and potentially “broader activities, like adapting to climate impacts”. Lutes concludes: “This high-stakes negotiation comes at a very sensitive time for the international community with cooperation seemingly at a low ebb. In this context, an agreement to decarbonise a key global sector would send a positive signal to countries now developing their national climate plans under the Paris Agreement and to COP30 in November in Brazil.”

A new study finds that the exposure of kelp forests to marine heatwaves will increase by at least sixfold – or as much as 16-fold – by the end of the century. Researchers use satellite data on kelp forests and climate projections to determine exposure intensity under a range of warming scenarios. They find that despite the intensifying extremes, just 3% of floating kelp forests globally are contained within marine protected areas. They also find that marine heatwave exposure “will intensify across all regions” of the ocean, but note that some areas of the world that do not currently experience marine heatwaves as severely “may provide climate refugia” for kelp forests.