There is widespread media coverage of the confirmation by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that the ongoing global mass coral bleaching event is on track to be the most extensive on record. The Guardian says it is the fourth such event since the first occurred in 1998. The newspaper adds: “Some 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough to cause bleaching, NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch said. A global bleaching event is declared when at least 12% of corals in each of the main ocean basins – Pacific, Atlantic and Indian – experience bleaching-level heat stress within a 12-month period. The declaration also requires confirmed reports of bleaching. Coral Reef Watch also confirmed the world’s largest coral reef system – Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – had been through its most widespread heat stress event on record in 2024. The first global bleaching event happened in 1998 with 20% of the ocean’s reef corals exposed to a level of heat stress high enough to cause bleaching. The second event, in 2010, saw 35% reaching that threshold, and the third from 2014 to 2017 peaked at 56%.” The New York Times says “at least 53 countries and local regions have experienced mass bleaching across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans”, adding that NOAA says the “intensity and regularity has also ramped up in the last two decades”. Derek Manzello, coordinator of the NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch programme, tells the Times: “This should be viewed as another very urgent global warning on the state of ocean health.” The newspaper also quotes Prof Terry Hughes, of James Cook University, Australia, who says the “levels of heat stress measured in Florida, across the entire Caribbean, and now on the Great Barrier Reef are off the charts”. Sky News, BBC News, CNN and Reuters are among the other outlets covering the story. Reuters has also published an explainer on what the coral bleaching event “means” and “what can be done”.

Separately, Axios has an article headlined: “La Niña on track to amplify Atlantic hurricane season, slightly cool globe.” The article says: The tropical Pacific Ocean continues to trend toward a La Niña phase, coming out of one of the strongest El Niño events on record since 1950. Why it matters: this has potentially huge implications, since depending on the timing, a switch could bring ideal conditions for Atlantic hurricanes.”

The Financial Times says that “climate ministers and UN officials will descend on Washington this week in a bid to supercharge global talks on how the world should pay to combat climate change as global temperatures soar”. It continues: “Officials including Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, Denmark’s global climate policy minister Dan Jørgensen and top UN climate change official Simon Stiell arrive in Washington alongside finance ministers from around the world who are attending the annual spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. The World Bank has become a focal point for negotiations to find up to $9tn a year by 2030 to pay for action on climate change.” The newspaper quotes Rachel Kyte, a professor in practice of climate policy at the University of Oxford, saying that while there has been “movement” within the World Bank, “most observers” think the changes are not “deep enough and fast enough”. The FT adds: “Broader negotiations on the finance goals that ministers will hold on the sidelines of the World Bank and IMF meetings are already tense after rich countries repeatedly failed to meet the previous $100bn annual target set more than a decade ago.” Bloomberg says that “officials from Azerbaijan, the nation hosting the next round of UN climate talks in November, are already seeing disagreements between states and parties over the central focus of this year’s summit – climate finance”.

China plans to “tighten supply in its national carbon market” to pressure large polluters to cut emissions, reports Bloomberg. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has released draft plans for comment which aim to tackle “overallocation of allowances” in the emissions trading system (ETS) and set restrictions on the “volume that can be carried over to the following year”, according to people familiar with the matters, the outlet adds. The state-supporting newspaper Global Times covers comments made last month by Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin but not previously reported, saying that “the carbon-trading market should not be fully market-driven like the stock market…[but] should operate under strict national regulations and control, ensuring that enterprises participate under state authorisation[] meet national emission reduction targets”. It adds that Liu and MEE vice minister Zhao Yingmin met recently with climate envoys from various European countries to discuss “various topics including energy efficiency, nuclear power, and the role of hydrogen”. Energy news outlet BJX News quotes Wang Jingmin, associate dean at Shandong Finance University, saying the MEE’s proposal on ETS reform would encourage enterprises to “actively participate in market-based transactions for non-fossil electricity”. The state-run industry newspaper China Electric Power News reports that to accelerate the establishment of a “unified and standardised carbon emission accounting system”, the MEE and the national bureau of statistics (MEE) calculated the average carbon dioxide emission factors for electricity in 2021.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported yesterday that, according to a draft “European solar charter” set to be signed later in the day, “governments would consider using more EU funding and national aid to back solar manufacturing projects” against Chinese competitors, adding that the document does not include “any commitments on EU trade tariffs or restrictions on solar panel imports”. Another Reuters article says that German chancellor Olaf Scholz, on a visit to China, said that while Germany welcomes imports of Chinese cars, “competition must be fair”. State-run newspaper China Daily carries a comment by Liu Zuokui, deputy director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who argues that Germany and China’s “automobile and energy sectors serve as exemplars of successful industrial collaboration, exemplified by [Chinese battery manufacturer] CATL’s significant investments in Germany”. Another comment in China Daily says that the “overcapacity rhetoric used by the US to describe China’s green industries” hinders globalisation and free trade. The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News says that Western economic powers, led by the US and Europe, “politicise, instrumentalise and weaponise economic and trade issues…hampering global climate action and energy transition”. Politico quotes trade lawyer Laurent Ruessmann saying that the EU’s “new tools will remain window dressing” to address China’s clean energy exports, adding that “full-scale trade defence is what will matter in the long run”. Finally, the Times carries a comment article by Andy Palmer, who was previously chief executive of Aston Martin and chief operating officer of Nissan, headlined: “The West should learn from China’s strategic EV vision.”

Many outlets cover the news that Tesla has announced it is to cut more than 14,000 jobs. The Times says “Elon Musk’s groundbreaking electric car company [is feeling] the heat of a global price war with Chinese rivals at the same time as stalled demand for zero-emission vehicles”. (Global electric vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2024 grew by 21% compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Rho Motion.) The Times reports that, in an email to staff, Musk said: “As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.” The newspaper adds: “The news extended the collapse in the share price of Tesla on the American technology-heavy Nasdaq index, falling $9.57, or 5.6%, to close at $161.48, down 35% since the start of the year. Once a trillion-dollar stock the company is now valued at $550bn. The shares reached a high point of more than $400 a share in the autumn of 2021.” BBC News quotes Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital Advisors, saying the layoffs “signal that Tesla’s major growth phase is meeting serious headwinds”. The Guardian says: “The move follows a difficult start to the year for the electric carmaker. Tesla said it had made approximately 387,000 deliveries to customers in the first quarter of 2024, missing market expectations by about 13%. It was its first fall in deliveries in nearly four years.”

Separately, the Daily Telegraph reports that “US private equity investors have bought the site of what had been hoped would become Britain’s first electric car battery gigafactory in a blow to Britain’s net-zero ambitions”. It continues: “Land in Cambois near Blyth in Northumberland had been expected to become the home of the £3.8bn Britishvolt factory before the company fell into administration last year. However, Northumberland County Council revealed it has sold the site to Blackstone, which plans to turn the site into a data centre.” The Guardian says: “The deal will secure the future of a large brownfield site in a relatively deprived part of the UK. It will also be able to make use of local green-power generation including from offshore wind. However, it is also likely to end the dream of securing thousands of jobs at the site, which had been the hope of the council.”

Writing for Reaction, Ian Stewart, Deloitte’s chief economist in the UK, notes that while the “transition to net-zero faces headwinds there have also been areas of progress”. He explains: “The increase in coal use in Europe in response to the loss of Russian gas has been reversed. A greater focus on energy security in the wake of the energy crisis has created a new impetus for decarbonisation. Higher energy prices, with the oil price well above average levels, add a further incentive for the economy in energy use. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a mammoth programme of federal green tax breaks and subsidies, is having an impact…The EU has pledged $270bn in green subsidies as part of its response to the IRA. The EU has also introduced a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that will eventually levy a tax on the embedded carbon content of imports into the EU. The size of the European market means that the CBAM could create a bandwagon effect, driving other countries to price carbon and capture emissions domestically to avoid exports into the EU being taxed through the CBAM.” (Stewart also cites Carbon Brief’s recent analysis showing that a Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to US emissions by 2030.)

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Los Angeles Times is headlined: “High electric bills threaten California’s clean future. This plan would help.” An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald argues that “governments should subsidise household batteries to go with solar”. An editorial in the climate-sceptic comment pages of the Wall Street Journal focuses on why (in its view) Texas is experiencing a “Spring energy scare”. Finally, the New York Times has a comment piece by Peter Coy in which he explores how a new book sets out new “political technologies” for tackling climate change.

Writing in the FT, Robert Buckland, a senior adviser at Engine AI and former chief global equity strategist at Citigroup, says: “The latest turmoil in the Middle East has also had a muted effect on energy prices. It has had little impact on global stock markets. Quite the contrary – the S&P is 20% higher than when this conflict started in October last year. Why are energy and stock markets becoming less sensitive to geopolitical events, especially in the Middle East? I attribute much of this to US (and Canadian) shale. New drilling techniques have opened up access to enormous oil and gas reserves in North America. As a result, in 2019 the US moved from being a net importer to an exporter of energy, according to the EIA. This newfound self-sufficiency has reduced the impact of external events on the world’s dominant stock market (US equities now represent 64% of the MSCI AC World benchmark). Even when geopolitical turmoil pushes up the oil price, a subsequent increase in US shale production helps drive it back down again. By capping the upside to energy prices, this helps limit the downside for equity prices. US shale has become a geopolitical put option for stock markets. Even in Europe, which is most exposed to the war in Ukraine, a shift towards renewable energy should reduce future vulnerability.”

The Guardian’s Jasper Jolly looks at “what next for oil prices after Iran’s attack on Israel”. He writes: “The attacks have not so far had any effect on oil supply, and the members of Opec, the oil producers’ cartel, have spare capacity to produce another 6m barrels a day, according to Goldman Sachs. If they decided to, they could use their spare capacity to drive prices down much further.” Similarly, the Daily Telegraph’s Tim Wallace explains “why oil prices have withstood Iran’s attack on Israel – so far”. 

In his weekly column for the Guardian, George Monbiot explains why a “highly misleading” new documentary claiming soil carbon storage can redeem the livestock industry is “all so much ‘moo-woo’”. He writes: “Livestock farming ranks with the fossil fuel industry as one of the two most destructive industries on Earth. But because of those farmyard tales, reinforced by stories we’re told as adults in endless books and films celebrating the pastoral, we apply entirely different standards to it. Parts of this film [called Six Inches of Soil] could be clipped and used as advertisements for the most damaging of all livestock products: beef. Astonishingly, it was made not by meat companies but by environmentalists…[The film] liberally uses the term ‘regenerative’, which means whatever you want it to. It wrongly claims that cattle can be carbon neutral or carbon negative and that beef-eating can be eco-friendly.”

Elsewhere in UK comment, various newspapers – including the Daily Telegraph (twice), Times and Daily Express – give space to commentators attacking climate policies. Finally, an editorial in the Daily Record says that “Scotland needs a proper strategy and [to] deliver on green jobs vow”.

Fruit-eating animals – “frugivores” – play an important role in dispersing the seeds of carbon-dense trees, but this is being put at risk by forest fragmentation, new research finds. Using ground-based data gathered in the Atlantic forest of Brazil, scientists show that large fruit-eating birds are responsible for dispersing the seeds of trees with the highest carbon-storing potential, but that the animals are restricted from doing this when tree cover falls below 40%. The restricted movement of large fruit-eating birds has the potential to reduce forest “biomass” – the total weight of plants in a given area – by up to 38%, the researchers estimate. They conclude: “Active restoration (for example, planting trees) is required in more fragmented landscapes to achieve carbon and biodiversity targets.”

The Atlantic hurricane season could increase by between 27 and 41 days in future due to the combined impact of climate change and natural climate variability, new research suggests. The research uses modelling to examine how natural climate phenomena, such as El Niño and La Niña, as well as a scenario of future greenhouse gas emissions, could affect hurricane season length. The authors say: “We found that multiple factors influence Atlantic hurricane season length, through their influence on season start and end. Warm sea-surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) in the western subtropical Atlantic during boreal spring (before the official hurricane season start) drive early starts to the hurricane season, and vice versa for cool SSTAs. Meanwhile, La Niña events in autumn (before the official hurricane season ends) drive late ends to the hurricane season, and vice versa for El Niño.”