Millions of low-income households could see power bills cut with the long-awaited watchdog’s report into the UK’s energy sector. In the report published at 7AM today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) proposes a price cap for all households using pre-payment meters. It also recommends that the regulator, Ofgem, keeps a database of customers that have been on a standard rate for three years. This database will then be opened up so these customers can be targeted directly by other suppliers. The BBC says the report follows an 18-month investigation into the energy market by the CMA, sparked by the fact that households and small businesses have paid £1.7bn a year more than they should have.The Telegraph, Financial Times, Mirror, the Independent and the Guardian all carry the news. Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, says: “This is a wakeup call to the Big Six [energy providers].” Meanwhile, yesterday, the BBC reported that E.On, one of the so-called Big Six, said that its annual net losses more than doubled in 2015 to €7bn (£5.4bn) after it wrote down the value of its loss making power plants by €8.8bn. The energy firm blamed record low wholesale electricity prices. E.On also reported a 9% fall in underlying earnings at its UK supply business to £267m, from £294m in 2014.

Stephen Hawking is among more than 150 fellows of the Royal Society based in Cambridge who have come out in favour of staying in the European Union, arguing that Brexit could be a “disaster for science”. Signatories to the letter are “scientists, mathematicians, engineers and economists” and include Sir David Mackay, the former chief scientific advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

EDF has been warned that going ahead with its vastly expensive Hinkley Point project will tip it towards a downgrading of its credit rating. This would raise the cost of financing the £18bn that the company needs to build the world’s most expensive nuclear reactor. Moody’s, the credit rating agency that put EDF on notice of a potential downgrade last month, said that the project would have to be “mitigated” by the French company raising capital and cutting its debt. The Times says it is “almost impossible” that EDF would find an additional partner to help to share the financial burden with CGN, its existing Chinese backer.

The world is on track to reach dangerous levels of global warming much sooner than expected, according to new research published in the journal Plos. The Guardian says it highlights the “alarming implications of rising energy demand”. University of Queensland and Griffith University researchers have developed a “global energy tracker” which predicts that average world temperatures could climb 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2020. That forecast, based on new modelling using long-term average projections on economic growth, population growth and energy use per person, points to a 2C rise by 2030. Liam Wagner, one of the authors, says: “We have a choice: leave people in poverty and speed towards dangerous global warming through the increased use of fossil fuels, or transition rapidly to renewables.” Ben Hankamer, another author, adds: “When you think about statements like ‘coal is good for humanity’ because we’re pulling people out of poverty, it’s just not true. You would have to burn so much coal in order to get the energy to provide people with a living to get them off $2.50 a day that [temperature rises] would just go through the roof very quickly.”

The FT has interviewed John Watson, Chevron’s CEO and he doubts that climate initiatives threaten his business. “First and foremost the world needs affordable energy,” he says. Some climate policies could actually help Chevron’s business, he adds, including support for liquefied natural gas to replace coal for power generation in Asia: “If limiting carbon emissions is important, there’s a number of things we can do, and we need to see policymakers take on the things that are economic and make sense for consumers and for the environment…What has been the biggest step change in the energy system in the last 10 years? It’s been fracking. There’s a lot of resource out there.”

Twenty-one teenagers have appeared in an Oregon courtroom to challenge the federal government over what they claim is a failure to protect them from the impacts of climate change, while several hundred schoolchildren protested outside. At issue is whether the 21 teenagers, the oldest of which is 19, have standing in the case – including whether they have or will suffer specific injuries that can be reasonably traced to government actions affecting climate change and whether the court is able to remedy those injuries. The judge did not issue an immediate ruling on Wednesday whether the case will be allowed to go forward, though the plaintiffs said they expected a decision to take one to two months. Climate Home also carries the story.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have spiked more in the period from February 2015 to February 2016 than in any other comparable period dating back to 1959, according to a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory. The change in average concentrations from February of last year to February of this year was 3.76 parts per million at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, leaving the concentration at 404.02 parts per million for February, based on preliminary data. “We’ve never seen that…That’s unprecedented,” says Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.

Until now, the Earth’s landmass had been considered a “sink” for carbon dioxide, soaking up some of the emissions of the greenhouse gas from human activity. But after being overwhelmed by other greenhouse gas emissions, scientists now believe the land has reached saturation point and the emission of gas from plants, for example, is contributing to global warming. In a new study published in Nature, researchers have demonstrated that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide have “overwhelmingly” surpassed the land’s ability to soak up carbon dioxide. They suggest that this saturation means the land may now actually be contributing to climate change, instead of slowing it down.

The US solar power industry will grow in 2016 at a rate 119% higher than last year, an industry-backed report predicts. The forecast says that 16 gigawatts of capacity of new solar panels will be installed in 2016. It would far exceed last year’s 7.3 gigawatts and set a new record, the reports says.

Darby looks at “why climate watchers are so dismayed by the European Commission’s post-Paris report”. She looks at why any sense of urgency has “gone out of the window”: “Well, the EU2030 climate and energy framework was hard fought. As last week’s environment ministerial showed, the bloc is not of one mind on this. Germany, France and other – mainly wealthy – states see opportunities in a low carbon shift. Eastern and Baltic nations are the voice of scepticism, fearing the impact of tight emissions curbs on energy prices. With refugees and Brexit dominating the Brussels agenda, leaders do not want to reopen this debate.”

For investors who seek long-term low-risk investments, the 20-year lifespan of an onshore wind farm is an attractive prospect, reports Howard. But that’s not the whole story, says David Hostert, European wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. He predicts that annual growth in Europe will drop to 8-9GW, compared to 11GW last year and plateau in about 18 months: “That has to do with subsidy schemes winding down, more competitive allocation mechanisms like auctions, and the availability of good sites.”

Gordon studies the fallout from this week’s resignation of Thomas Piquemal, EDF’s finance director: “If the [Hinkley] deal does not make sense at that level of pricing, it is difficult to see what deal would. Despite its juicy terms, though, EDF is battling other issues which give some credibility to Mr Piquemal’s claims. The plan for Hinkley involves using unproven technology which has already run into trouble elsewhere.” She adds: “The Hinkley Point deal may make political sense, for both the French and the British. But for EDF in its present state it is a risk too far.”

Labour’s shadow energy minister is concerned about new UK government proposals which would ban publicly funded research from being used to influence government policy: “Such catch-all rules could prevent climate scientists from using publicly-funded research to challenge the government’s fossil fuel-based energy policies. It could stop organisations who receive government funding to shore up our defences against flooding and other climate impacts, from helping to develop more robust adaptation plans. One scientist who raised the issue in the journal Nature pointed out that the new rules are so unspecific that they could prevent the UK’s world-leading climate scientists from contributing to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Summary for Policymakers.”

The warming effect from methane and nitrous oxide emitted from land outweighs the cooling effect from the carbon dioxide it takes up from the atmosphere, a new study suggests. Researchers estimated methane and nitrous oxide emissions from plants, soils and wetlands as a result of human activity, such as land use change and farming. The results suggest these emissions surpass the ability of the land to soak up carbon dioxide emissions, making ecosystems on land a net contributor to climate change.

As the climate warms, the area affected by the Bluetongue virus is likely to broaden, especially in central Africa, the US, and western Russia, a new study says. Bluetongue is a viral disease that primarily affects ruminants such as sheep and cows. It is spread by midges and causes breathing, eye and foot problems, fever, infertility and even death of animals. Using models, the researchers map the current distribution of Bluetongue and its future spread under four climate change scenarios.