According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization’s annual report, the “devastating impacts of the climate crisis reached new heights” last year, with floods, heatwaves and “supercharged hurricanes” occurring across the globe, reports the Guardian. “The WMO’s report on 2024, the hottest year on record, sets out a trail of destruction from extreme weather that took lives, demolished buildings and ravaged vital crops,” the article continues. The concentration of CO2 hit its highest point for 800,000 years, with 2024 likely the first to surpass 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, reports the Financial Times. The global CO2 concentration hit 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2024, 151% of the level before industrialisation started, reports the Daily Mail. The report found that the past 10 years have been “the 10 hottest in nearly 200 years of record-keeping”, reports the New York Times. Additionally, the past eight years have set a new record for ocean heat content, reports Axios. The report “sets out a grim list of unwanted records”, reports New Scientist, including “the rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began, increasing from 2.1mm per year between 1993 and 2000 to 4.7mm per year between 2015 and 2024”. Antarctic sea ice extent has now hit record lows for four years, as it is “beginning to decline in the face of climate change”, reports the Times. Reuters quotes John Kennedy, WMO’s scientific coordinator and lead author of the report, who said: “Changes in [the Arctic and Antarctic] regions potentially can affect the kind of overall circulation of the oceans, which affect climate around the world. What happens in the poles doesn’t necessarily stay at the poles.” Climate scientists “said they watched with surprise as “extraordinary” global temperatures broke record after record last year”, reports the Independent. 

A federal judge has temporarily barred President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from “clawing back at least $14bn in grants issued by the Biden administration for climate and clean-energy projects”, reports the Washington Post. US district judge Tanya S Chutkan of Washington DC ruled that both the EPA’s mid-February asset freeze and 11 March termination of legally awarded grants came without “credible evidence” of fraud or abuse legally required, it adds. The ruling stops the EPA from reclaiming the funding it had deposited at Citibank for the three coalitions of grant recipients, Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, reports Politico. “But the decision did not revive those groups’ ability to draw from the funds, postponing that decision until after further court proceedings”, it adds. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin had accused the grants recipients of “mismanagement, fraud and self-dealing and froze the grants”, reports the Associated Press. “At this juncture, EPA defendants have not sufficiently explained why unilaterally terminating plaintiffs’ grant awards was a rational precursor to reviewing” the green bank programme, Chutkan wrote, according to AP. The article notes that she was the third judge on Tuesday to rule against the Trump administration. Relatedly, a federal judge ruled that Elon Musk “likely exercised unconstitutional power in orchestrating the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the US agency that manages foreign aid”, reports Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, the EPA is planning to “eliminate its scientific research office” and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees, reports the Associated Press. The group works on providing “the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants”, the article notes. According to a document reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology the EPA may abolish the office and fire up to 75% of its staff as part of large-scale layoffs known as a “reduction in force”, reports the Washington Post. Advocates have warned that the firings and funding freezes enacted by the Trump administration will have a “cataclysmic” impact on the environment of the sensitive Great Lakes region, reports the Guardian. 

In other US news, President Trump has vowed to open up hundreds of coal power plants in the US, reports the Los Angeles Times. Writing on social media on Monday, Trump said: “After years of being held captive by environmental extremists, lunatics, radicals and thugs, allowing other countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all coal fire power plants, I am authorising my administration to immediately begin producing energy with beautiful, clean coal,” the outlet reports.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning body, issued new guiding regulations on promoting the development of the “green electricity certificate” (GEC) market, industry news outlet BJX News reports. According to the document, the “entire society’s demand” for green power will be “significantly increased” by 2030, the outlet adds. The document also requires “key” industries – such as steel, building materials, petrochemicals and data centres – to have a “green electricity consumption ratio no lower than the national average renewable energy consumption obligation” by 2030, energy news outlet International Energy Net says. Another International Energy Net article quotes an official with the National Energy Administration (NEA) saying the current GEC mechanism has seen “prices continuing to drop” and the “environmental value of green power [to be] underestimated by the market”. The state-run newspaper China Daily says that more than half of China’s new energy power generation was “consumed through market-based transactions” in 2024. The NEA also released a Q&A document explaining key concepts related to GECs, to raise awareness and “foundational knowledge” of the mechanism, power news outlet China Power News Net reports. Elsewhere, state broadcaster CCTV reports that China has drafted the regulations on the implementation of the country’s new mineral resources law, which is expected to take effect in July this year. During a tour of Guizhou, Chinese president Xi Jinping called on the province to “promote high-quality development” and “enhance its…new energy sectors”, China Daily says.

The Communist party-aligned People’s Daily quotes executive vice-premier Ding Xuexiang as saying that “China is ready to work with the UK to earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the leaders of both countries” in his meeting with UK energy secretary Ed Miliband. State broadcaster CGTN quotes NEA head Wang Hongzhi telling Miliband “the common interests in the energy sector between China and the UK are broad, and the foundation for cooperation is strong”, adding that the two countries will work on “improv[ing] the electricity market, innovat[ing] regulations and tackl[ing] regulatory challenges as the share of new energy increases”. Bloomberg columnist David Fickling writes an article titled: “America will lose if the EU and China become energy buddies”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) quotes Ma Jun, founder of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), saying that China is “well-positioned to take a stronger global leadership role on climate change”, adding that a free-trade mechanism “targeting sharp reductions in tariff and non-tariff barriers on goods and services that carry environmental benefits” should be developed. 

In related comment, a Bloomberg editorial writes that, with the US withdrawal from climate negotiations, “this is the moment” for China to “expand” its climate ambition. It argues that “what matters isn’t so much when China’s emissions peak, but the level they reach and how quickly they fall thereafter”. It adds that “if Chinese leaders want to prove they’re serious about meeting their climate obligations…they would set a hard cap on overall greenhouse-gas emissions and a goal of reducing them by at least 30% from 2023 levels by 2035”, as well as “adding clean-energy capacity at the current rapid pace while halting approvals of new coal plants”.

Former prime minister Theresa May has warned Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch that ending the cross-party support for net-zero will hurt future generations and cost Britons, reports the Times. May said that the net-zero by 2050 target was “challenging, but achievable” after Badenoch dubbed it “impossible” in a speech yesterday, it adds. [Carbon Brief has factchecked the claims in the speech.] Writing on Twitter, May said: “With every additional increment of warming the risks of climate change increase significantly, and at an increasing rate. Delaying action will only harm the next generation and increase both the economic and social costs of climate change,” reports the Standard. Badenoch also “drew a backlash from business leaders and former Tory ministers against her calls to unpick net-zero policies”, reports the Independent. The Confederation of British Industry warned that “now is not the time to step back from the opportunities of the green economy”, reports the i newspaper. Sky News reports the comments of UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte, who said: “This government has a clear commitment to climate leadership at home and abroad. Why? Because this is going to make British people more secure.” BusinessGreen reports that more than half of Conservative voters back net-zero by 2050, according to a new survey from YouGov. Badenoch has “ditched” the longstanding support for net-zero after “taking donations from key funders of a climate science denial group which has campaigned against the target”, reports the Byline Times. Badenoch’s speech announcing the Conservative party would no longer support the UK’s flagship climate target was hosted by an advertising group that works for Shell, reports DeSmog. And the Daily Telegraph highlights that the hard-right, populist Reform UK party has already committed to ditching the net-zero 2050 target.

In other UK news, researchers at the thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research have warned that GB Energy will need £8.3bn of funding “or it will disappoint”, reports the Guardian. The Times reports that energy group Hunting has said Labour’s stance on North Sea oil and gas is costing highly skilled jobs in Scotland as it decides to move its business to Dubai. And the Daily Telegraph reports that economic forecasting group EY Item Club has said that “Britain faces years of industrial decline and falling factory employment as high energy prices blamed on net-zero undermine the manufacturing sector”. 

India’s met authorities warn that many parts of eastern and western India are recording “severe” heatwave conditions “unusually early in the season, with temperatures exceeding 40C in several regions”, Hindustan Times reports. On Saturday, the maximum temperature in Boudh in eastern India was 42.5C, it adds, while Delhi hit 36.2C on Friday – “a whopping 7.5C above normal for this time of the year”. In 2024, the first of such conditions were recorded only in early April, it explains. According to a met official quoted in the paper, a key driver of the unseasonal heat is “a big high [high-pressure area] over central India” just as other experts have “pointed to changing climate patterns contributing to these temperature anomalies across the country”. 

Meanwhile, India’s top grid operator has flagged May and June as “high-risk months” for power shortages, warning that unmet electricity demand could reach 15-20 gigawatts (GW) “particularly during non-solar hours”, the Indian Express writes. The National Load Despatch Centre’s (NLDC) report projects that India’s peak summer power demand will go up to 270GW – “up from 250GW” last year – and recommends “shifting electricity use to off-peak hours” plus invoking emergency powers to leverage imported coal-based power plants, the outlet explains. The Express describes India’s National Electricity Plan (2017-22) that focused “almost entirely on scaling up renewables”, “ruled out fresh thermal capacity additions beyond 2022” and “actively discouraged” imported coal plants as “policy missteps over the past decade [that] are now coming home to roost”. Reacting to the grid operators’ reports, a Business Standard editorial cites a central government directive issued last month for “energy-storage systems to be colocated with solar projects”, pointing out that storage systems are “inadequate”. 

In other news, a report from Delhi-based thinktank the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) calls on India’s power ministry to “set a clear target of 600GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030” to meet the country’s growing electricity demand “reliably and affordably”, the Hindu BusinessLine reports. This, it says, “will require significant investments in energy storage systems”, but could “eliminate the need for new coal plants” and save up to $4.89bn in power procurement costs. At the same time, analysis by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) researchers estimates that the country’s solar power capacity “could fall by 600-800 gigawatt-hours before mid-century due to air pollution and climate change”, the Press Trust of India reports. 

Finally, India’s coal and mines ministry launched the country’s first-ever auction of critical mineral exploration licenses, the Economic Times reports. And Reuters reports that the government of Tamil Nadu will offer a $230 subsidy to “select gig workers to buy e-scooters” and set up lounges for workers in cities, such as Chennai, “where summer temperatures often exceed 40C”. 

Kemi Badenoch’s rejection of the net-zero by 2050 target is “a shock but no surprise”, writes Financial Times associate editor Pilita Clark. “Not a day has passed this month without some version of the opposition leader’s argument appearing in the UK’s right-leaning newspapers,” she continues. While the government has “ceded some ground to its critics”, one particular claim that “should be resisted” is the idea that renewables “have driven sky-high electricity bills that will soar even more” under the government’s clean energy by 2030 plans, she argues. While this claim may seem “persuasive” due to the high bills in the UK, this is due to the price of wholesale electricity being “disproportionately” set by gas, Clark explains. “Energy markets are complex. But anyone serious about cutting power bills and boosting British industry must grapple with these complexities. Simply attacking net-zero is not nearly good enough”, she concludes.

Relatedly, an editorial in the Times argues that Badenoch has been a “blast of fresh air on net-zero”, while also noting that “as yet, she has nothing to put in its place”. Also in the Times, policy editor Oliver Wright questions Badenoch’s attack on net-zero given the popularity of climate action, calling it a “huge political gamble”, adding: “This policy change is far from an immediate vote winner – and not even a particularly effective way of shoring up the Tories from the threat of Reform UK.” In the Daily Telegraph, climate-sceptic Conservative peer Peter Lilley writes that Badenoch has “just blown the net-zero myth wide open”. An editorial in the Daily Mail (not yet online) states that the Conservative party leader has “seen the light” by “removing this insane target”. It says that Badenoch has “sided with voters, who loathe paying more tax so posturing politicians can burnish their green haloes”. [As Carbon Brief’s factcheck points out, polling suggests that some 65% of the UK public backs the net-zero by 2050 target, as do 55% of Conservative voters and 90% of MPs.] In BusinessGreen, editor-in-chief James Murray writes that “Kemi Badenoch is wrong – net-zero by 2050 is difficult, it’s not impossible”. And in the Spectator, deputy political editor James Heale questions “Will Kemi’s anti-net-zero campaign bother Labour?”

Marine heatwaves in the tropical Atlantic have increased in frequency, intensity, duration and spatial extent over the last four decades, new research has found. The study notes that marine heatwaves are 5.1 times more frequent and 4.7 times more intense since records began in 1982. It also finds that “extreme warming” during the summer and autumn of 2020 led to the “largest” coral bleaching event recorded off the Brazilian coast. The researchers say the increase in severity of western tropical Atlantic marine heatwaves has not been matched by “trends in the strength of local drivers”, such as latent heat fluxes or shortwave radiation. This, they posit, suggests that “weaker forcing” can lead to “more devastating” marine heatwaves as the global ocean temperature rises, with implications for the survival of marine ecosystems.