The looming threat of an all-out global trade war, triggered by Donald Trump’s tariffs, has caused oil prices to slide more than 3% today in early trading, extending last week’s losses, which saw prices “plunge” 7% on Friday, reports Reuters. The newswire adds that the “escalating trade tensions between the US and China [has] stoked fears of a recession that would reduce demand for crude”. It continues: “Adding to the downward momentum, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) decided to advance plans for output increases. The group now aims to return 411,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the market in May, up from the previously planned 135,000 bpd.” Another Reuters article says: “Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, on Sunday slashed crude oil prices for Asian buyers in May to their lowest in four months, following a recent shock decision by the OPEC+ oil group to speed up oil output hikes.” The Wall Street Journal notes that US oil prices have fallen below $60 a barrel: “Oil prices kept falling Sunday night, caught in a trade war that investors fear will clobber the global economy and sink demand for crude oil.” A separate Wall Street Journal article says “oil futures slid in the early Asian session [today] on fears of weakening global demand”. A third Wall Street Journal article says that the “president’s tariff blitz sent oil prices tumbling 14% in two days, bludgeoning [US] frackers”.

In related news, the Financial Times says that “Trump’s new tariffs are set to pummel the renewable energy industry, threatening to push up prices, disrupt supply chains and undercut US ambitions to lead the artificial intelligence revolution, clean-technology executives said”. It adds: “The duties of 10-49% on electrical components, battery storage and other equipment from China, south-east Asia and Europe pose a one-two punch for an industry already reeling from Trump’s embrace of the fossil fuel industry and limited appetite for clean energy. Executives warned the added costs from tariffs would in turn prompt higher power bills.” The Washington Post says that a “stunning number of electric vehicle battery factories are being cancelled” in the US.

China has announced additional 34% tariffs on all US imports, as well as imposing export restrictions on some rare earths plus placed restrictions on about 30 US organisations, “deepening the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies”, Reuters reports. The newswire cites China’s finance ministry saying that the US move is “not in line with international trade rules… and is a typical unilateral bullying practice”. State-run newspaper China Daily says that the seven “key medium-to-heavy rare Earth elements” that China has put immediate controls on are “crucial for manufacturing high-performance magnets used in…green-energy technologies”. China’s countermeasures are a “fresh blow to global markets”, Bloomberg says. State news agency Xinhua publishes a comment on the US tariffs under the headline: “‘Reciprocal tariffs’ only lead to reciprocal losses, suffering.” The Wall Street Journal says Trump’s “jumbo tariffs” have created a new problem – a “$400bn deluge of Chinese goods looking for new markets”. 

Meanwhile, New Scientist says that China’s increasing “reliance on renewable energy” makes its power system vulnerable to “power shortages caused by unfavourable weather”. The outlet cites a study by Jianjian Shen at Dalian University of Technology saying that the country’s future grid would be “substantially more sensitive to changes in the weather than today”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that China is turning its attention to “flammable ice” reserves beneath the South China Sea, which could “dwarf the Persian Gulf’s oil reserves” and “redefine energy geopolitics”.

Elsewhere, in its “moral money” newsletter, the Financial Times says that the timing of China’s green bond issuance looks like a “pointed effort by Beijing to promote its credentials around international co-operation and climate action at a time when Donald Trump is shredding the US’s leadership position on both”. Dialogue Earth says that provincial governments are “speeding up work on carbon-footprint standards” that would allow sectors such as steelmaking and electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing to avoid the EU’s carbon-border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). China News publishes an article under the headline: “China’s energy storage advantage is helping African new energy market growth.” The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily interviews a “person in charge” from the National Energy Administration, plus Han Mu, deputy director of planning and development department of China Electric Power Enterprise Federation, and Tang Jun, CEO of State Power Investment Corporation, talking about the “negative price” of electricity in China.

There is widespread coverage in the UK media of the government’s decision, as BBC News describes it, to “step in” to “help the British car industry by making the rules on manufacturers going all-electric more flexible”. The broadcaster adds: “Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said that while the government is committed to the 2030 deadline [to ban on producing new petrol and diesel cars], she would relax regulations which dictate how firms make the switch in order to ‘protect and create jobs’.” The Financial Times says: “The UK government is watering down its targets for electric vehicles, with lower punitive fines, in order to support the domestic car industry after Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on the global automotive sector’s exports to the US.” It adds: “Sir Keir Starmer announced on Sunday that the 2030 phaseout date for new petrol and diesel cars will remain in place, but under the new plan manufacturers will be allowed to sell full hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles until 2035. The move answers a call by automakers including Toyota and Nissan for an extension for hybrid vehicles, and follows a two-month consultation with the industry on the UK’s so-called zero emission vehicle mandate. The UK prime minister also unveiled new flexibility in the targets by lowering the fine levels for each vehicle below the target, by £3,000 to £12,000 for cars and £15,000 for vans. The change will also allow carmakers to sell more zero-emission cars in later years when ministers believe demand will be higher. That means they will be given credit for making significant reductions in their own overall carbon emissions, which has benefited brands that sell large numbers of hybrids, until 2029 instead of 2026. They will also be allowed to trade credits between vans and cars.” Reuters says that the “measures announced will also exempt small micro-volume manufacturers including McLaren and Aston Martin from the mandate targets in an effort to save British supercars and advanced engineering”. Bloomberg says the “move is the first in a series of pro-growth announcements planned by Starmer’s government this week, as he responds to President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs that have roiled markets and fuelled concern of a global recession”. The Times says: “Under the changes, manufacturers will be able to balance the annual targets against each other until 2030 to avoid fines by selling more EVs in later years of the mandate. Starmer also wants to persuade ­British motorists that switching to EVs will make them better off in the long term, despite the higher upfront costs. Last month, 69,313 electric cars were sold, 43% more than in the same month last year.” The Daily Mail, which campaigns against net-zero policies, describes the move as a “victory for ‘white van man’”.

Writing in the Times, Starmer says: “We want British car companies to be at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution at home and overseas. When the last government rowed back on its electric vehicle targets, that harmed investment. So we will keep our commitments in place. The certainty that business needs in uncertain times. But we need to give British industry flexibility in how it gets to those targets. That’s why today we’re announcing changes to the EV mandate. The last government designed it with nowhere near enough regard for manufacturing. That era of policy making is over. Instead of micromanaging businesses, we’re trusting them. We’re giving them the flexibility they need to hit the target in a way that works for them while keeping our manifesto commitment to end sales of petrol cars by 2030. That means no British-based manufacturers should have to pay a fine – or pay foreign firms for EV credits. But, as a backstop, we’re also going to cut the fines by 20%. Any money we do raise will be invested straight back into supporting Britain’s automotive industry. That is our guarantee. We also know hybrid cars have been a fantastic innovation, so now they can be sold until 2035. That will ease the transition to electric cars.”

ITV News reports that West Cumbria Mining, the “company behind controversial proposals for a new coalmine in Whitehaven has withdrawn its planning application”. It adds: “The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have confirmed they rescinded the planning application after initially reassessing the proposals. Responding to the news, climate campaigner Tony Bosworth, from Friends of the Earth, says he’s ‘delighted this long running saga has finally drawn to a close’.” Cumbria’s News & Star newspaper says: “The MHCLG was in the process of reassessing the planning application following the result of legal challenges by Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) from September last year which quashed previously granted permission.” BBC News says: “The mine was initially approved by the then-government in 2022, but [opponents] argued the environmental impact of burning extracted coal had not been taken into account. At the high court last September, Mr Justice Holgate described the government’s assumption that the mine would not produce a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or would be a net-zero mine, as ‘legally flawed’.”

In other UK news, the Financial Times says: “Greenpeace has raised the prospect of a fresh legal challenge to two planned UK oil and gasfields after the government signalled support for the projects, despite a court revoking their consent because of their potential climate impact. The campaign group has warned the energy department that public comments by the prime minister and the chancellor could be seen as prejudging any fresh application for consent for the Rosebank and Jackdaw projects, leaving any new decision vulnerable to legal challenge.”

The UK government has approved plans to build an offshore windfarm capable of “powering about 1m British homes before the end of the decade”, reports the Guardian. It adds: “The plan to extend the Rampion offshore windfarm by adding 90 turbines off the Sussex coast is expected to add about 1.2 gigawatts of clean power for British households and businesses. It could also create 4,000 jobs in the construction phase of the project, known as Rampion 2, which is expected to begin next year.” The Daily Telegraph, which campaigns relentlessly against net-zero policies, says the project features “dozens of turbines as tall as the Eiffel Tower”. Writing in the Independent, climate and energy secretary Ed Miliband says: “The strong winds around our island nation make Britain one of the best places in the world for offshore wind. Harnessing our significant natural energy resources can help free our country from the grip of petrostates and dictators like Vladimir Putin. This decision also means in nine months, we have now consented enough clean power for nearly 2m homes, creating an estimated 9,000 jobs to deliver it. I know some people oppose our plans to build clean energy in this country. But every wind turbine, solar panel and piece of grid infrastructure we construct helps protect families and businesses from future fossil fuel shocks. Today’s decision, along with our wider reforms to the grid connection queue, will pave the way for wind farms to be built faster.”

In the UK energy news, the Times reports that the power company SSE is to “cut jobs in Scotland and halt a number of renewable energy projects because of rising costs and falling demand”. BBC News says that “plans have been unveiled to build a 100MW battery energy storage system (BESS) near Selby”, adding: “Developer Brockwell Energy has proposed to build the BESS on land to the south-east of the A645 near Drax golf course at Camblesforth.” The Daily Telegraph reports that “Ed Miliband has sunk an extra £2.7bn into Sizewell C after EDF slashed its stake in the nuclear power project”. It adds: “The energy secretary said the additional money would boost energy security, jobs and the race for net-zero.”

Meanwhile, the Scotsman says that “helicopters are being used to tackle a large wildfire in Galloway”. The Daily Telegraph runs a story under the headline: “Net-zero insulation plan won’t pay off for 100 years, government admits.” Finally, the Mail on Sunday clears two pages in its print edition to run a misleading feature which starts with the sentence: “Fears of a plot by Russia to sabotage Britain’s energy pipelines means families should pack a 72-hour ‘survival kit’, security advisers have warned.” It is then followed by this false claim: “As the UK pursues net-zero environmental targets – leading to the closure of coal-fired power stations – the country has become increasingly reliant on supplies of gas and electricity from abroad in order to ‘keep the lights on’.”

Brazil’s idea to create a new multilateral body under the UN climate regime to fast-track implementation of COP decisions has “triggered cautious responses from key developed countries, with Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden backing reform discussions, but warning against weakening the core UNFCCC process”, reports the Press Trust of India. The newswire adds: “Brazil, which will host this year’s UN climate conference or COP30 in Belem, has informally proposed setting up a ‘Climate Change Council’ under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to improve how the world responds to climate change. The idea is to speed up decision-making, coordinate efforts and improve implementation as many feel the current UN climate process is too slow and complicated…Part of a five-member delegation from EU countries that visited India last week, Germany’s deputy special envoy for international climate action Gerhard Schlaudraff told journalists that the idea was discussed at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin in March. He welcomed Brazil’s move to start the conversation, but warned against undermining the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement.”

In other EU news, Reuters reports that “carbon dioxide emissions regulated under the European Union’s emissions trading system (ETS) fell by 5% in 2024, driven by cuts in the power sector, the European Commission said on Friday”. And the Wall Street Journal says that the “global crude sell-off” has caused “European natural-gas prices [to fall] to their lowest level in four weeks, with the benchmark Dutch TTF contract trading below 40 euros a megawatt hour”.

Foreign companies are “undervaluing Africa’s natural capital and paying derisory prices for its carbon sequestration”, the head of the continent’s biggest development bank tells the Financial Times. The newspaper quotes Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank, saying: “We used to have land grabs. Now we are having carbon grabs…The cost of getting permits in Europe probably can be as high as €200 a tonne. Or you can go get it in Africa for $3. Countries are losing vast areas of forest, vast areas of land, to what I call a carbon grab.” The FT adds: “Adesina, who is leaving after 10 years at the bank in September, did not name specific companies. But several companies trade African carbon linked to avoiding deforestation, for example, through cookstove schemes meant to reduce emissions by enabling consumers to make meals without using firewood. Some of those schemes have been questioned or discredited, driving the price of credits down.”

“It would be understandable for a climate concerned person to fear that economic headwinds will be yet another force that slows climate action,” begins Justin Worland in his latest comment piece for Time magazine. He writes: “Indeed, it’s inevitable that this chaotic moment for markets will push executives to train their eyes on stopping financial bleeding. But that doesn’t mean that businesses will deprioritise or cancel their climate programmes.” He continues: “Over the past few years, many firms have transitioned their environmental commitments from long-shot investments or marketing schemes to financially motivated efforts with short-term returns. The economic anxiety ahead poses a crucial test. Has understanding of sustainability’s financial opportunity grown such that companies lean into their climate work, or will executives slip into thinking that climate programs are simply too expensive?…The companies that find ways to make climate action financially advantageous may not only weather this storm but emerge positioned for long-term success in a world where both climate impacts and climate solutions continue to reshape markets.”

Bloomberg opinion editor and columnist Mark Gongloff looks at how some banks have been rolling back their climate commitments under Trump: “The transition to cleaner energy, with all the financial opportunity that brings, has its own economic momentum. Trump is apparently happy to cede such fertile ground to China, Europe and elsewhere. Banking customers may not be so happy to do so. It was naïve to ever hope Wall Street would voluntarily save the world without some financial incentive. But avoiding climate change’s economic destruction and the smack of the political pendulum when it swings against fossil fuels again should be incentive enough. The reckoning could come sooner than banks may expect.”

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Financial Times says: “White House directives attacking climate science and diversity and inclusion policies are meanwhile putting under threat research on global warming or even on different ethnic groups’ vulnerability to diseases. Global progress on dealing with climate change and preventing disease and epidemics could be at risk. That creates a clear incentive for other countries to safeguard such work by providing havens to US-based academics.”

Writing in the Independent, Prof J Doyne Farmer, a professor of complex systems science at the University of Oxford, says that “detailed studies by our team at Oxford show that not only is net-zero by 2050 possible, a shift to clean energy would save the world $12tn in energy costs, bringing down costs for consumers and industry, as well as increasing energy security”. He adds: “As the costs of clean energy technologies continue to plummet and their performance improves, shrinking UK policy ambition would only make UK energy prices higher and put British industry at a disadvantage…[Conservative leader Kemi] Badenoch was simply wrong when she said pursuing net-zero would harm Britain’s standard of living. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck of Badenoch’s false claims.] Clean energy is already cheaper today than fossil fuels in most applications…From a purely economic perspective, even if climate change were not a looming threat, we should still make this transition quickly.”

Meanwhile, in other UK comment, Alex Chisholm, the UK chair of EDF, argues in the Times that “Britain has all the resources it needs to achieve energy security”. He continues: “More than half the gas Britain uses is imported. Both energy crises exposed the risk of relying on imports. The government spent £44bn supporting consumers in the gas crisis. Despite that, growth and business competitiveness is shackled by some of the world’s highest electricity prices, residential bills are over a third higher than pre-crisis, and £4bn of UK household energy debt is pushing up everyone’s bill by £28 a year. The answer is to turn again to Britain’s resources. This is what drove me to join EDF, where we are investing £100m a week in Britain’s energy security. Being an energy island means two things. Making the energy we need from our own resources and finding more uses for our homegrown energy. Britain has some of the world’s best wind resources – plentiful and mostly blowing over shallow and stable seabeds. Government is right to harness this. Coupled with solar, storage and flexibility, Britain’s wind will be the large part of our future energy island. These will be underpinned by nuclear, which provides reliable, low-carbon baseload electricity.

Elsewhere, the Observer carries an editorial on SUVs, which it says: “They are too dangerous and too big, their drivers should be made to pay.” The Guardian has a feature headlined: “What next for climate activism now Just Stop Oil is ‘hanging up the hi-vis’?” The Guardian also gives space to Indigo Rumbelow, the co-founder of Just Stop Oil who is currently on remand following a protest: “My message from prison: Just Stop Oil may be ending civil disruption, but the fight must go on.” In contrast, the Daily Telegraph’s restaurant critic William Sitwell claims that a “new group of unwashed activists [are] intent on crippling the capital”.

Finally, the UK’s climate-sceptic newspapers continue to pump out comment pieces attacking net-zero, including headlines in the Daily Telegraph about how “Labour must rip up its net-zero plans in this new world order” and how “punishing net-zero targets have left the UK’s auto industry perilously exposed to Trump’s tariffs”. The Mail on Sunday’s Sarah Vine attacks solar farms under the headline: “Another slice of paradise turns to dust – just to please Comrade Miliband and his eco-zealots.”

The “lifetime” of methane – defined as the length of time the molecule takes to break down in the atmosphere on average – decreases from 9.3 to 7.3 years over 1850-2100, according to a new modelling study. The authors simulate the global methane cycle over 1850-2100, using the “strong mitigation action scenario” SSP1-2.6 from 2014 onwards. They find that wetland emissions follow a “persistent upward trend”, rising from 0.17bn tonnes per year in 1850 to 0.22bn tonnes per year in 2100. The findings show that “important” components of the methane cycle are subject to Earth system feedbacks, according to the study.