Greenpeace has been ordered to pay $660m in damages over its protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota, reports the Financial Times, in a decision that the environmental campaign group said could bankrupt its US operations. The newspaper continues: “A nine-person jury in Mandan, North Dakota, ruled in favour of Texas-based pipeline operator, Energy Transfer, on Wednesday, finding Greenpeace and its US entities responsible for defamation, conspiracy and physical damage to its Dakota Access Pipeline…The lawsuit stemmed from Greenpeace’s participation in protests against the construction of the pipeline in 2016.” Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in federal court back in 2017, but the case was dismissed, the article notes. During the new trial, lawyers for Greenpeace said the lawsuit was “ridiculous” and that the group was being made a scapegoat for the extensive protests at Standing Rock, the Sioux reservation through which the pipeline cut, the Times says: “Members of the tribe sued to stop the pipeline crossing their land, arguing it infringed on their sovereign territory, threatened their water supply and damaged ancient cultural sites.” Greenpeace says the verdict would likely mean the end of its 50-year-long operations in the US, reports the Washington Post, adding: “In 2023, the most recent year for which the group’s tax records were available, it had roughly $40m in revenue and 191 employees.” The Guardian notes that “more than half the jurors selected to hear the case had ties to the fossil fuel industry, and most had negative views of anti-pipeline protests or groups that oppose the use of fossil fuels”. Bloomberg quotes a statement from Greenpeace, which says: “We’re going to appeal. And we’re prepared to fight this all the way to victory.” The New York Times, CNBC, Wall Street Journal and Daily Telegraph all have the story, while the Associated Press has a Q&A about Greenpeace.

The Chinese government is “delaying approval” for BYD to build a plant in Mexico amid concerns that the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer’s “smart car technology” could be leaked across the border to the US, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper adds that Beijing is instead giving preference to projects in countries that are “part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative”. The Financial Times also reports that the European Commission is “investigating whether China provided unfair subsidies for a BYD electric car plant in Hungary” in a “highly sensitive move to target the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Viktor Orbán”. The article notes that “if Brussels finds that the Chinese company has benefited from unfair state aid, it could force it to sell some assets, reduce capacity, repay the subsidy and potentially pay a fine for non-compliance”. Reuters also has the story. 

Elsewhere, an article in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post says the US “doesn’t offer a real, credible and viable alternative to the Chinese investments” in critical minerals in the DRC. Separately, China’s Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday that it will “issue up to 6bn yuan ($829m) of yuan-denominated sovereign green bonds in London, marking China’s first issuance of such bonds overseas”, Reuters reports. The state-run newspaper China Daily quotes Chao Qingchen, director of China’s National Climate Centre, calling for “stronger global cooperation to accelerate energy transition as an urgent means to mitigate the looming crisis” as global temperatures “approach dangerous highs”.

China aims to have at least 80% of the electricity used in new data centres at “national hub nodes” come from renewable sources by 2025, the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports. The National Energy Administration (NEA)-run China Power News Net (CPNN) reports that China’s green electricity certificate (GEC) system is beginning to “interact with other policies”, and is starting to work in “parallel” to the national carbon market. CPNN also says the NEA will continue to support the development of renewable energy projects, accelerate the construction of a new electricity system and focus on the “clean and efficient use of fossil fuels” in its planning for the country’s next five year plan (2026-2030). The People’s Daily reports that the government has issued guidelines for the “construction of digital energy and carbon management centres in industrial enterprises and parks”.

A “long-awaited” report says up to 800 “green jobs” could be created over the next 15 years at the Grangemouth site, where Scotland’s only oil refinery is set to close, reports BBC News. The “Project Willow” study identified nine areas for potential low-carbon industries, such as sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen production and plastics recycling, the outlet explains, noting that owner Petroineos is “shutting the loss-making refinery at the sprawling industrial complex on the Firth of Forth with the loss of 400 jobs”. Within the article, an analysis by BBC Scotland’s environment correspondent, Kevin Keane, notes that the “report sets out the options but it still requires billions of pounds in private cash. Decisions on whether to spend that money have to be done with an assurance of a return on that investment.” The Guardian adds that the potential new jobs would come too late for workers being laid off this year. In a frontpage story, the Scotsman says the £3.5bn cost “casts doubt” over the feasibility of the plan. An accompanying analysis describes the amount of investment needed as “eye-watering” and says the project would require a “huge amount” of political will. In an editorial, the newspaper says Grangemouth “represents a test case for the future of much of the North Sea ‘offshore energy’ industry”. It adds: “There has been much talk about a ‘just transition’ from a fossil fuelbased economy to one in which electricity is the dominant source of energy – what it means and how it should be carried out – but precious little action. What is needed now is hard evidence that it can actually work.”

Meanwhile, the Sun reports in an “exclusive”, frontpage story that a “bombshell leaked government document” warns of the risk to the UK economy from “stranded assets” that lose their value or become obsolete because of the push to net-zero. The report “contains warnings that poor planning for going carbon neutral by 2050 comes with the ‘potential risk of destabilising the financial system’”, the newspaper says. [The article overlooks the fact that unchecked warming would be “catastrophic” for UK public finances.] The report also warns that the “disruption caused by the transition could result in unemployment and skills mismatches, with negative knock-on impacts for growth, productivity and the ability to reach net-zero”, the article reports, noting that “it also raises the alarm that the UK is poorly placed for the transition due to sluggish global inward investment”. Analysis (within the same article) says the report – titled: “Macroeconomic impacts of the net-zero transition” – was written by the Business Department’s economy and strategic analysis team. A Sun editorial says the report is “terrifying hard evidence of the national ruin we have long predicted”. The Daily Mail picks up on the Sun’s reporting. 

In other UK news, Bloomberg reports that energy regulator Ofgem has “approved a plan to stimulate as much as £4bn of spending on the power grid as the country targets a zero-carbon network by the end of the decade”. The Times reports that the interim chief executive of GB Energy has said the UK could become an exporter of floating wind farms to the rest of the world. The Daily Telegraph reports that a recycling programme for food and drink manufacturers  – which the newspaper describes as a “net-zero grocery tax” – will “push up prices in the nation’s pubs and restaurants”. The Daily Telegraph also reports that “environmental taxes raised £52.5bn in the UK in 2023”.

The US is “stalling” on the distribution of $2.6bn in climate finance to South Africa, reports Bloomberg, “stoking concerns the money might be blocked outright”. Citing “people familiar with the situation”, the outlet says that, at a meeting earlier this month, “US representatives prevented the World Bank-linked Climate Investment Funds from approving a $500m disbursement to South Africa”. It adds: “Those funds would have unlocked a further $2.1bn from multilateral development banks and other sources of financing. Another attempt to approve the payment may be made at CIF meetings in June.” The article notes that disbursements by the CIF can be blocked if any of the 15 nations that have contributed to the $12.5bn in funds it oversees object or ask for more time to seek additional details on what the funds will be used for and under what conditions. It adds: “It’s unclear which approach the US took to thwart the approval process.” Reuters also picks up the story.

Brazilian newspaper O Globo covers environmentalists’ criticism about the construction of a 13km road that would run through Belém, the city host of COP30 this year. According to the newspaper, scientists “point out a contradiction in the governor’s environmental discourse”, as the road “cuts through a large area of remaining forest in the Amazon”. Meanwhile, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling declaring the state of Ecuador responsible for breaching the rights of two Indigenous peoples in isolation, such as the right to collective property and to a healthy environment, SciDev.Net reports. The ruling “protects [them] from any extractivist activity that [threatens their lives]”, the outlet says. 

In other Latin American news, snowfall in Chile could fall by up to 50% by the end of this century, according to a study covered by BioBioChile. It says the study predicts a “dramatic reduction” in the amount of snowfall in the Andes, as well as the expansion of temperate zones over northern and southern Chile. A researcher tells the outlet that the snow decline “could affect the ecosystems that depend on snow as a source of water supply at times of peak demand”. La Nación reports that in the first quarter of the year there has been a rainfall deficit of between 20 and 60% in Argentina’s province of Chaco, which has cut yields of various crops, including soy, maize and sorghum, according to experts. 

Finally, in a comment piece for Excélsior, Itzel Morales, branch manager of Climate Reality Latin America, writes that 10 years after the Paris Agreement, Mexico faces “increasing challenges if it does not act with urgency and political will”. Morales points out that although the country put forward new climate commitments in 2022, compared to those of 2015, the “implementation of climate policies is still lagging behind”. 

The CEO of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil this November has warned that the world expects too much from the annual climate summits, reports Climate Home News. It quotes Brazil’s national secretary for climate change Ana Toni speaking at a conference at Chatham House in London on Tuesday: “COPs are not silver bullets – people are expecting COPs to deliver things that COPs cannot deliver, because change happens every day.” It says she added that “we don’t need to wait for COP to start implementing”, emphasising the roles of the private sector and sub-national governments. It continues: “One limitation of COPs, she said, is that country delegations are usually led by their climate or environment ministers whereas a lot of key climate decisions are made by ministers of finance, transport, agriculture and energy who ‘are not there’.”

UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch may be the “first prominent person to break the cross-party consensus on net-zero”, but “she’s not without cover”, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams. Commenting on Badenoch’s net-zero speech this week, Williams notes: “There has been a steady build of grassroots movements with specific, vehement objections to apparently pretty anodyne pro-environmental policies: ultra-low emission zones (Ulez) have attracted the ire of the outer London vandal-warriors; low-traffic neighbourhoods blew up into a culture war between neighbours; the 15-minute city attracted conspiracists with an intensity way beyond anything explicable by the idea.” While “outlets such as GB News have been preaching climate impossibilism for some time, it has until now been broadly disallowable in mainstream political discourse”, says Williams, adding: “Politicians could undermine climate action tangentially, by fulminating about Extinction Rebellion or by sideswiping at the ‘green crap’, but would not, if they were ambitious, pursue a despair agenda. Not because it wouldn’t garner them attention, but because it meant resiling from scientific and international consensus.” Drawing parallels with the Brexit debate, Williams adds: “This may be a useful point at which to consider not the arguments themselves, but what happened last time: when we last saw irresponsible, ignorant, reactionary arguments, which if followed through would be greatly to the nation’s detriment, whose proponents seemed to be effortlessly attaching themselves to a simmering underlying rage that they had no real answers for, over an issue that public opinion, previously, had seemed quite sensible on.”

In other reaction to the speech, Daily Telegraph climate-sceptic columnist Allison Pearson congratulates Badenoch for “having the guts to stand up to the green zealots in her own party”. Another climate-sceptic columnist – Juliet Samuel in the Times – says the “end of consensus is welcome” and attacks the independent Climate Change Committee for “regrettably becom[ing] an unquestioned authority on all aspects of energy policy”. The Guardian’s environment reporter Helena Horton factchecks Badenoch’s speech, noting that the Conservative leader “provides no evidence to support [a] position that flies in face of expert reports and her own words”. Carbon Brief has also factchecked the speech.

Elsewhere in comment, a Guardian editorial reflects on the potential governing coalition in Germany that would see the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic party (SPD) “join forces across the right-left divide for the fifth time”. It says: “German politics is reinventing itself at a vertiginous pace. On Tuesday, at the behest of the chancellor-elect, Friedrich Merz, the outgoing Bundestag voted to change the country’s Basic Law to allow historic levels of public investment in defence, national infrastructure and the climate transition. The so-called debt brake – a constitutional restriction on borrowing that had come to symbolise Germany’s fiscal conservatism – is being unceremoniously sidelined.”

In a comment for China Daily, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Institute for Energy Studies at Xiamen University, says that the global energy transition is “currently at a critical stage” and it is “imperative” for China and the international community to “counter the impact” from the Trump administration’s rollback on climate actions. He goes on to criticise “the significant rise of unilateralism and protectionism in global clean development”. Separately, an article in the state-supporting Global Times says that the “rising frequency of extreme weather events” in recent years leaves “no doubt that the world is now facing an unprecedented climate challenge”.

An analysis of climate action plans from US cities finds that 72% of strategies focus on climate mitigation, while 28% address adaptation. The study authors assess plans published by 157 cities across the US between 2018 and 2023, noting that most came from cities in more “liberal states”. They find that 40% of strategies target operations just within the city boundaries. The researchers write that, given regulatory limitations, cities could “explor[e] new opportunities to collaborate across sectors to support industry and residents in their own decarbonisation efforts”.