Energy ministers from the G7 group of industrialised countries, who are meeting in Turin this week, have reached a deal to shut down their coal-fired power plants in “the first half of the 2030s”, Reuters reports. The newswire says: “On Tuesday the ministers will issue a final communique detailing the G7 commitments to decarbonise their economies.” It adds that according to Italian energy minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who is chairing the meeting in Turin, ministers are also “pondering potential restrictions to Russian imports of liquefied natural gas to Europe which the European Commission is due to propose in the short-term”. The Financial Times, which trails the story on its frontpage, notes that last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai “ended with a pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, and accelerate efforts towards the phase-down of so-called unabated coal power”. The paper says that energy and climate ministers agreed a date of 2035 for the phaseout. It continues: “Sources said the final agreement, however, could include leeway in the planned timeline to include the option of a date ‘consistent with keeping a limit of 1.5C temperature rise [above pre-industrial levels] within reach, in line with countries’ net zero pathways’. This would help countries heavily reliant on coal, such as Japan.” CNN notes that Japan, which derived 32% of its electricity from coal in 2023, “has blocked progress on the issue at past G7 meetings”. [Two years ago, the G7 nations had already pledged to fully decarbonise their power sectors by 2035.] CNN quotes Andrew Bowie, a UK minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, who called the agreement “historic”. However, the Independent says that “climate groups” have called the decision “too little, too late”. The news is also covered by BusinessGreen, Bloomberg and Semafor.

In ongoing coverage of the flooding in Kenya, BBC News reports that muddy flood waters have killed 50 people in villages near Mai Mahiu, about 60km from Nairobi. The broadcaster says that people “were swept away as they slept” and that rescuers are continuing to pull people out of the mud, with “fears that the death toll could rise”. The Independent says that according to the Kenya Red Cross, 109 people were taken to hospital and 49 others are missing. It adds: “More than 200,000 people across Kenya have been hit by the floods, with houses in flood-prone areas submerged and people seeking refuge in schools.” CNN says flooding in the region was exacerbated by the bursting of a dam. The New York Times adds: “United Nations experts have attributed the heavier-than-usual rains to a combination of two natural climate cycles: El Niño, which increases the likelihood of wet conditions in certain parts of the world, and a similar pattern called the Indian Ocean Dipole.” Separately, BBC News reports that so far, more than 120 people have lost their lives due to the flooding in Kenya. It adds: “Flooding in Nairobi is not unusual but the sheer scale of this year’s deluge has exposed longer term problems with the way the city has developed.” The broadcaster spoke to urban planning and environment expert, Prof Alfed Omenya, who said that much of the city sits on top of the Nairobi River’s floodplain. It quotes Omenya explaining that “a properly developed drainage system may have been able to cope, but as the city has grown over the last century from 100,000 residents to today’s 4.5 million the infrastructure has not kept up”, and blamed “clueless leadership that started from the colonial times”. According to the broadcaster, Omenya adds that this season’s floods show that rainfall could get more intense as a result of climate change, and a new plan is urgently needed. Al Jazeera, Le Monde and the Associated Press also report on the flooding. 

In other extreme weather news, there is ongoing coverage of the heatwave in Asia. Reuters reports that the high temperatures are hampering efforts in the Philippines to “catch up to its neighbours in education”. The heat has forced thousands of schools to suspend classes, affecting more than 3.6 million students, the outlet says. It continues: “The Philippines scores among the lowest in the world in maths, science and reading, partly because of years of inadequate remote learning during the pandemic.” It quotes a campaigner saying that the country is expecting more class suspensions due to the heat in May” Le Monde reports that Myanmar recorded its hottest-ever April temperature of 48.2C. It adds that a Bangladeshi court ordered a nationwide shutdown of schools on Monday due to the heatwave. And the Independent reports that two people have died from suspected heat stroke in India. It adds: “In India, over 140 weather stations recorded temperatures of 40C and above on Sunday with some regions recording as high as 45.6C.” 

Bloomberg reports that according to China’s weather bureau, in the next 10 days, southern China is expecting rain that “is likely to double normal levels”. The outlet adds that the heavy rain could damage “early rice crops in some areas of the world’s biggest producer and consumer”, with low-lying fields facing the risk of floods. State-run newspaper China Daily reports that a tornado has struck Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province that was battered by heavy rainfall last week, killing at least five people with 33 others injured on Saturday. The outlet adds that the tornado, accompanied by downpours, thunder and lightning, also “destroyed and damaged 141 factory and residential houses” in the city’s Baiyun district.

Meanwhile, energy news outlet BJX News reports that in the first quarter of 2024, the newly installed capacity of renewable energy in China reached 63.67 gigawatts, a year-on-year increase of 34%, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). State-run newspaper China News reports that “the development of China’s hydrogen energy industry has entered the fast lane”, meaning more investments in hydrogen have been approved by the Chinese government. Reuters columnist John Kemp writes that China’s “energy intensity has flatlined for the last five years making it much harder to displace coal by renewables and meet the government’s objective of capping total emissions”. 

Elsewhere, economic news outlet Caixin reports that after a “sluggish early start to the year” for new vehicle sales (NEVs), China has now launched subsidies to stimulate demand for electric and low-emission combustion-engine vehicles by encouraging prospective buyers to trade in old cars for new ones, which will see consumers receive subsidies of 10,000 yuan ($1,409). Bloomberg reports that Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to visit France, Serbia and Hungary in May, his first trip to the EU since 2019, as tensions between China and Europe “flare”. State news agency Xinhua reports that Chinese premier Li Qiang has stressed the “importance of developing intelligent connected NEVs and making the auto industry more high-end, smarter and greener”. Elsewhere, Xinhua carries an article arguing that “China’s new energy sector is not just a source of domestic growth but also a catalyst for job creation globally”.

Finally, Reuters reports that Tesla chief executive Elon Musk “made progress towards rolling out Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance package in China on a whirlwind weekend trip to Beijing, sending the company’s shares soaring more than 16% on Monday”. BBC News reports that the agreement “would allow Tesla to go ahead with some autonomous driving technology in China”. The news is also covered on the frontpage of the Financial Times. 

Rwanda and Peru have put forward a motion at UN talks in Canada to cut plastic production by 40% between 2025 and 2040, the Guardian reports. The paper continues: “A global plastic reduction target would be similar to the legally binding Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, Rwanda and Peru said. ‘The target should align with our objectives for a safe circular economy for plastics by closing the circularity gap between production and consumption,’ the countries said. ‘It should also align with our objective in the Paris agreement to limit warming to 1.5C. To this end, one such global reduction target could be a 40% reduction by 2040 against a 2025 baseline.’” The newspaper highlights a study, which warns that “by 2050 plastic production could account for 21-31% of the world’s carbon emission budget required to limit global heating to 1.5C”. It adds that the proposal calls for mandatory country-level reporting of production, imports and exports of primary plastic polymers. Reuters says that if the proposal is signed at the end of the year, it could be “the most significant deal relating to climate-warming emissions and environmental protection since the 2015 Paris Agreement”. It adds: “The plastic industry now accounts for 5% of global carbon emissions, which could grow to 20% by 2050 if current trends continue, said a report last week from the US federal Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.” The New Scientist notes that “plastic production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than flying”. 

Separately, Steve Fletcher – is professor of ocean policy and economy at the University of Portsmouth – has penned a comment piece in the Guardian under the subheading: “The UN global plastic treaty could be as important as the 2015 Paris accords, if negotiators can stand up to industry lobbyists.” Fletcher explains that the current meeting is the fourth of five scheduled negotiations, but says that “​​the prospect of agreeing on the final treaty text by the end of 2024 seems ambitious”. He adds: “It was Inger Andersen, the UN Environment Programme executive director, who compared the deal to the Paris accords – and she’s right. The need to confront plastic pollution head-on is urgent because plastic pollution contributes to the three greatest global environmental crises of our time: the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and chronic pollution.” However, he adds: “Any mandated cut in primary polymer production would challenge very powerful forces. Countries whose economies rely on fossil-fuel and petrochemical industries reject the idea of production cuts and are lobbying hard against a binding production reduction target in the treaty. In previous negotiations this took the form of blocking and delaying tactics.”

Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has resigned, triggering a leadership contest in the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Associated Press reports. The outlet says that Yousaf “was brought down by his decision to oust the Green Party from his governing coalition because of differences over climate change goals”. It continues: “Support for the SNP in part declined after the party backed legislation to make it easier for people to change their gender and implemented a hate crime law that made transgender identity a protected characteristic, even though the same protections weren’t given to all women. Then came Yousaf’s decision to scrap Scotland’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 75% by 2030. Although he said Scotland would still achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, the decision sparked tensions with coalition partners. The Green Party initially backed the change, but party leaders said they would poll the broader membership and reverse course if necessary. Last week, Yousaf abruptly ended a power-sharing agreement with the Greens, embarrassing the party’s two government ministers who had arrived for a Cabinet meeting. Although Yousaf on Monday acknowledged his mistake, it was too late to repair the damage.”

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reports on its frontpage that later today, the UK’s energy security and net-zero secretary, Claire Coutinho, will say that net-zero policies “risk crushing British businesses if imposed in the wrong way”. The newspaper says that in a speech at the Innovation Zero conference for technology entrepreneurs in London, Coutinho will “warn against a green ‘leviathan of central planning’ and argue that it should be the free market, instead of the state, that drives progress towards climate goals”. It adds: “She is expected to say: ‘The first path is one I do not want to take us down. It is one with an ever-increasing and narrowing set of targets, where government dictates outputs and prices, and a net zero leviathan of central planning crushes our brilliant enterprise economy. The second is where we live with some uncertainty, knowing that it is one of the key stimulants of risk and product development that competes to win over consumers.’ Coutinho will argue that the latter approach ‘gives us the space to tackle our emissions’ while ‘keeping the lights on and costs low for British families and businesses’. Saying she is ‘proud’ of the progress the UK has made in reducing its carbon emissions, the energy Secretary will add: ‘We are less than one per cent of global emissions, and our bigger contribution to tackling climate change will come from innovation.’” Separately, Politics Home has published an interview with Coutinho about her journey into politics. Coutinho tells the outlet: “We need to make sure that we’re being honest with the public about costs, and realistic about what the country needs when it comes to energy security and energy affordability. I’m not just the secretary of state for net-zero – I also have to look at all of those three things in the round.” The outlet adds: “Coutinho’s key attack line against Labour is that its target for clean power by 2030 [which is five years earlier than the government’s 2035 goal] means it will have to pursue a ‘made-in-China transition’…Pressed on whether it is realistic to cut out China altogether when 98% of the UK’s solar panels come from there, and whether the more Tory approach might be to compete with China instead, Coutinho talks about ‘building resilience’ and ‘working with allies’ but sidesteps the questions.” It adds: “Among the controversial delays in government schemes is the clean heat market mechanism, which would have fined boiler manufacturers for missing heat pump targets. Coutinho defends the year-long pause as ‘protecting consumers’, because manufacturers were imposing a so-called ‘boiler tax’ in response to the threat of fines.” [Coutinho previously described boiler firms’ behaviour as “price gouging”.]

The decision of Scottish first minister, Humza Yousaf, to step down has received widespread media attention. Columnist and leader writer for the Times, Hugo Rifkind, says net-zero is “the thing that has actually killed” Yousaf. He continues: “Or, to be more specific, it is the report published last month by the nationwide UK Climate Change Committee, which looked at Scotland’s green plans and, in précis, said ‘lol, no’. Whereupon, inevitably, Yousaf abandoned them. Whereupon, equally inevitably, his coalition with the Scottish Greens became untenable…It’s worth taking a direct look at the committee’s report, if only to appreciate just how damning it was. ‘The Scottish government is failing to achieve Scotland’s ambitious climate goals,’ it began. Also, ‘there is still no comprehensive delivery strategy’ and ‘actions continue to fall far short of what is legally required’. All this, and we’re still in the first paragraph. Honestly, it was a proper mauling.” Rifkind reviews how Scotland’s net-zero targets have evolved, noting that in 2017 and 2018, Yousaf’s predecessor Nicola Sturgeon promised 80% and 90% reductions in emissions by 2050 respectively. He continues: “A year later, becoming the first UK political leader to speak of a ‘climate emergency’ at the SNP’s conference, Sturgeon was promising net-zero by the same date. Literally weeks later, that date had advanced to 2045, seemingly for the sole reason that Theresa May was abruptly also promising 2050.” Rifkind calls the pledges “admirable”, but adds that “a date clearly means absolute bupkis on its own”. He notes that Boris Johnson “was singled out for praise last week by the CCC’s chief executive, Chris Stark, who pointed out that Johnson really did have a vision that combined net-zero and levelling up”. In contrast, he says that Yousaf’s climate pledges are “a tale of preachy, competitive, virtue-signalling ambition and not much more”. He concludes: “Should any successor now wish to draw the Scottish Greens back into coalition, one option would obviously be to leap, full (hybrid) throttle into tackling everything that the CCC said it had bodged, such as offshore wind, electric vehicles, tree planting, peat restoration, heat pumps and recycling, having somehow – with difficulty, with bravery, with honesty – found the money.”

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Financial Times says: “Yousaf’s fatal error was to dump the Scottish Greens from a power-sharing deal, rather than see if they would dump him, after the two fell out over the dropping of high-profile climate targets.” An editorial in the Times says “the real problem – ignored by many nationalists – is the fantastical world view cultivated within the SNP that allowed the party to entertain the Greens as coalition partners”. The Guardian says: “The departing first minister’s doomed attempt to reset his government was intended to preempt a revolt by the Greens over the scrapping of environmental targets. That followed a damaging assessment by the climate change committee, suggesting that the groundwork had not been done to achieve them.” An editorial in the Daily Mail celebrates Yousaf’s decision to step down. It says “Under the woke authoritarianism of the SNP and their ex-coalition partners, the Scottish Greens, [the Scottish people] got divisive trans policies, unattainable and unaffordable climate change goals and absurd hate laws. They deserve less clueless leadership.” Daily Telegraph columnist Sherelle Jacobs writes that Yousaf’s decision “proves” that “the old progressive politics is dead”. She says: “Yousaf’s party has exalted Joe Biden’s green industrial plan as the new social democratic model. In reality, America’s attempt to revive its Rust Belt with heavily subsidised and protectionist green industrialism is virtually impossible for smaller countries that don’t have the luxury of the world’s currency reserve to replicate. In the end, Scotland’s liberal centrism has come crashing down. Humza Yousaf has failed to hold together a coalition with the Greens after being compelled to abandon a net zero target to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030.” And the Daily Telegraph’s deputy economics editor, Tim Wallace, argues that the SNP “must embrace fossil fuels if it wants to survive”, noting that “the fossil fuel industry was seen as Alex Salmond’s SNP trump card, providing the financial firepower an independent nation needed if it were to split from the rest of Britain”. Another comment in the Daily Telegraph sees columnist and associate editor Ben Wright writing that “electric cars could sink Tesla – not even Elon can stop it”. He says: “For much of its history, Tesla was the only decent electric car marker in the world. Now traditional manufacturers have significantly upped their game, especially in producing hybrids. An even bigger threat has emerged in the form of Chinese brands whose battery technology and manufacturing techniques enable them to churn out seriously good cars at knock-down prices.” Finally, Joel Kotkin writes in the Daily Telegraph under a headline saying that “electric grid wars are a direct assault on the Western middle class”.

In South Africa’s the Mail and Guardian, Tsogololathu Itaye, a lecturer at the University of Malawi, writes that “climate change disasters have a psychological toll that is ignored”. Itaye notes the impacts of the widespread flooding across Malawi following tropical cyclone Freddy in March 2023, and says that “response and recovery from the cyclone took more than a month”. She continues: “Social workers are not recognised as an asset, yet they can play a critical role in all phases of disaster risk management. In disaster preparedness, social workers have a deep understanding of community dynamics, cultural norms and local contexts. They can conduct vulnerability assessments to identify vulnerable populations. They are best placed to work with local authorities such as village headmen and chiefs, and with residents to develop disaster preparedness plans tailored to specific needs and resources. Social workers’ engagement with communities leads to trust and cooperation. Social workers can also take on the role of educators…During disaster recovery, social workers can deliver psychological first aid to individuals.” However, she says that social workers can only play this role if there is sufficient funding, and argues that “a budget needs to be allocated and we need to ensure that psycho-social perspectives are integrated from the outset of planning and response”. 

The diminishing suitability of Europe’s climate for different types of trees is “creating a tree species bottleneck for current management”, a new study warns. The researchers develop species distribution models for 69 European tree species based on occurrence data from more than 200,000 plot locations. Their findings show that “the average pool of tree species continuously suitable throughout the century is smaller than that under current and end-of-century climate conditions”. In order to maintain continuous climate suitability throughout the lifespan of a tree planted today, climate change “shrinks the tree species pool available to management” by between 33% and 49% of its current values under what the study describes as “moderate” and “severe” climate scenarios, respectively. This bottleneck “could have strong negative impacts on timber production, carbon storage and biodiversity conservation”, the authors conclude. An accompanying News & Views article says the study “provides tools to promote climate-resilient forests deep into the future”.