India has produced more than one billion tonnes of coal and lignite in the current financial year that ends in a few days, an event its coal minister Pralhad Joshi termed a “historic high”, the Hindu BusinessLine reports. It quotes Joshi saying: “This will ensure the lights are on in citizens’ houses even as the coal sector continues to power up the economy.” The newspaper says he “assur[ed]” citizens that his ministry had made “ample preparations” to meet peak summer power demand. Another story in the paper says the government was “open to offering” closed and abandoned coal mines to private companies under a revenue-sharing model. Mongabay India, meanwhile, carries a story on how unplanned coal mine closures affect women. 

Meanwhile, Business Standard reports that India’s supreme court “opened up” 80,000 square kilometres of land for renewable energy developers such as Adani Green and ReNew planning projects in the habitat of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB). The paper says the court “relaxed” an earlier order that mandated underground cabling and said that “the cost of burning coal is higher than allowing overground transmission lines” for renewable projects. Separately, India’s maiden critical minerals auction “faced a setback” this week, with “almost no takers” for seven blocks under the hammer, including one in Jammu and Kashmir for lithium, reports another Business Standard story. Elsewhere, CNN carries a lengthy feature on Adani Green’s Khavda renewable energy park in Gujarat, which is “five times the size of Paris” and could be the “planet’s largest power plant” when built. An Adani Green-sponsored “green energy gallery” opened at London’s Science Museum this week, reports PV Magazine, but “has gone down badly with environmentalists”, says a story in the Guardian. Finally, the Indian Express reports on negotiations over a new climate finance target at this year’s COP29 climate summit, titled: “How much should developed countries pay for climate action?”

Reuters reports that China has “initiated dispute settlement proceedings” against the US at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to “safeguard its interests in the electric vehicle (EV) industry”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post also covers the story and reports China’s Ministry of Commerce saying in a statement that “the US has formulated discriminatory policies regarding new energy vehicles, excluding products from China and other WTO members from subsidies”. State-run publication Xinhua also quotes the ministry, saying that the complaint was filed to maintain “an environment of fair competition” in the global EV industry. The Associated Press says “the real-world impact of the case is uncertain” and that it “likely would go nowhere” even if the US loses and appeals the ruling. 

Meanwhile, the US-based outlet Politico reports that the EU’s top climate diplomat Tony Agotha and the climate envoys of Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands are planning a joint trip to Beijing, scheduled for 8 April, to meet Liu Zhenmin, China’s new climate envoy. The South China Morning Post publishes an opinion article by Bob Savic, head of international trade at the Global Policy Institute, saying that despite “protectionism from Washington”, the EU has reasons to “keep things sweet” with China. 

  Elsewhere, the Financial Times has published a “big read”, trailed on its frontpage, on whether president Xi Jinping’s clean-energy manufacturing plan will be enough to “rescue” China’s economy. After reporting of Chinese solar company Longi saying that it plans to lay off 5% of its staff, the Financial Times also carries a feature on its founder Li Zhenguo. The solar billionaire says he “feels the heat” as the solar energy industry “grapples with a collapse in prices”, although “the opportunities for everyone to contribute to the fight against climate change through renewable energy solutions are boundless”. The Financial Times also reports that China’s “battery king” Robin Zeng has dismissed solid-state EV battery commercialisation as being “years away”. In addition, the Financial Times carries a Lex comment “warning” car companies that Chinese EV maker BYD is capable of even more “aggressive” price cuts. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Chinese EV battery maker CATL is now in talks with Tesla and other unnamed automakers about licensing its battery technology in the US, instead of building plants there.

 In other China news, the first “green electricity and green certificate service station” has been established in China, financial media outlet Caixin reports. State broadcaster CCTV reports wrongdoing in a solar power generation project in a village in Hubei province, where a solar energy plant was built on “non-occupiable” farmlands. Finally, Industry newspaper China Energy News reports that China’s solar capacity increased by more than 36 gigawatts (GW) in January and February, a year-on-year increase of 80%, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). Zheng Zhajie, director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), says that China will accelerate the development of “new quality productive forces” while calling for further promotion of “green and low-carbon transformation”, IN-EN.com reports. Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper publishes an interview with Zhai Panmao, former co-chair of the IPCC, who says that “climate change is real, it is what we are experiencing, and we will increasingly experience its effects” and that “we must take effective action as soon as possible”.

French president Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have launched a €1bn green investment plan for the Amazon at a meeting in Belem, the city that will host the UN climate summit COP30 in 2025, Le Monde reports. The investment plan aims to raise “€1bn of public and private investment over the next four years”, according to a roadmap published by the French presidency, Le Monde says. It adds: “France, the seventh largest economy in the world, and Brazil, the ninth largest, are considered key players in a geopolitical scene marked by rivalry between China and the US. Paris sees Brasilia as a bridge to large emerging economies whose voices Brazil is trying to amplify through its presidency of the G20 and membership of the BRICS+ group.” France24 reports that climate change is “top of the agenda” on Macron’s three-day trip to Brazil.

In Europe, Reuters reports that a group of EU countries led by Austria is calling for urgent revisions to the bloc’s anti-deforestation law set to go into effect at the end of the year, saying it could hurt European farmers. Elsewhere, the Guardian reports on an analysis by campaigners showing that new gas projects will increase Europe’s generation capacity by 27%, despite the global push to transition away from fossil fuels. The analysis also notes that the UK is planning or building more gas-fired power stations than almost any other European country, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The UK oil and gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), has told producers that they must convert their drilling platforms to run on low-carbon electricity or low-carbon fuels, the Daily Telegraph reports. It says: “This means all new developments before 2030 must be designed to run on electricity, while all those after that must be fully electrified from the start.” [The NSTA’s plan for decarbonising oil and gas production emissions is slower than what has been recommended by the UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee.] It comes as the Press Association reports that the UK’s House of Lords (the unelected chamber sitting above the House of Commons) is currently debating the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which introduces a duty on the NSTA to run annual oil-and-gas licensing rounds. Green Party peer Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb described the bill as a “climate change denier’s charter”, PA says. It quotes her as saying: “The continued expansion of fossil fuel extraction is incompatible with a liveable planet for humans and millions of species. It doesn’t matter where on Earth those fossil fuels are extracted from or what the balance of trade is, we need to massively cut our carbon emissions.”

Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that the head of the National Grid has warned that electricity demand from UK data centres could “jump sixfold over the next 10 years as a boom in artificial intelligence requires increased computing power”. Reuters speaks to net-zero minister Graham Sturart, who says the UK can still meet its target of offshore wind deployment by 2030 even after an auction last year failed to secure any new capacity. Separately, Reuters reports that the government has announced the first round of funding for clean hydrogen projects and begun calls for the second, “setting in motion a strategy which industry says is commendable but must move faster”. The Guardian reports on data showing nearly 4m energy smart meters in homes and businesses are faulty.

The Times publishes an editorial describing the Labour party’s pledge to decarbonise the power grid by 2030 as “hubristic and unrealistic”. It says: “A net-zero generating sector is a desirable thing. Both Labour and the government support a net-zero Britain by 2050 [it is a legal target] and power stations still ­contribute 19% of national CO2 emissions, despite world-leading reductions over the past decade. The argument between the two parties about a net-zero grid is not if but when. The Conservatives favour 2035; Labour’s much more ambitious commitment to make it a reality five years earlier is one of its few concrete policy commitments…Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, and Ed Miliband, his shadow energy secretary, would be deeply reluctant to roll back on another pledge. Yet, the security of the nation’s energy supply in the coming decade demands it. The 2030 target is unrealisable. Trying to reach it is hubristic and reckless.” It cites costs, supply chain issues and “the caprice of the British weather” as reasons why the target is unrealistic. Elsewhere, Daily Telegraph assistant editor Jeremy Warner says the UK is being “frogmarched into smart meter oblivion”. Another Daily Telegraph article by conservative commentator Joel Kotkin says the US president Joe Biden’s push for EVs could be the “biggest blunder” of his administration. In addition, a lead comment article in the Daily Express by military history book writer Tim Newark says the UK’s “suicidal devotion to net-zero” has led to a “boom in China’s power”.

As Australia becomes warmer and drier as global temperatures rise, the country’s soils will become a net emitter of CO2, according to new research. Modelling changes in Australia’s soil organic carbon stock from 2010 to 2100, the study projects losses of 0.014-0.077 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year over 2020-45 and 0.013-0.047 tonnes for 2070-2100, under increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and temperature. These predicted net losses of soil carbon will “significantly affect Australia’s ability to achieve its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target”, the authors say. They add that to shift to a more sustainable pathway, Australia “must embrace existing GHG removal technologies and develop new large-scale solutions to achieve sustainability”.

A new review paper synthesises the effects of extreme heat on human health in tropical Africa. The study finds that heat “has many adverse effects on human health, such as worsening mental health in low-income adults, increasing the likelihood of miscarriage, and adverse effects on well-being and safety, psychological behaviour, efficiency and social comfort of outdoor workers who spend long hours performing manual labour”. The findings also highlight “the social inequalities in heat exposure and adverse health outcomes”, the authors say.