A presidential decree signed by Vladimir Putin yesterday says that Russia will stop supplying gas to countries it considers “unfriendly” unless they pay in roubles, reports the Financial Times. The edict – which is “effective immediately”, the paper says – requires buyers in 48 countries, including the EU, to open a bank account both in foreign currency and in roubles at Gazprombank in Russia. These countries are those that have established sanctions against Russia’s economy, governing and business elite for its invasion of Ukraine, the FT notes. In a speech at the Kremlin, Putin said that Russia was establishing “a clear and transparent scheme” for these foreign customers, adding: “If such payments are not made, we will consider this a default on the part of the buyers – with all the ensuing consequences.“ A Financial Times analysis piece says the move “makes little difference to Moscow” in practical terms and the “main impact is political”. It adds that “Putin in effect aims to force the west to breach its own rules by having to interact with the central bank and its banking system”.

However, Politico says that “Vladimir Putin blinked” in the decree as “there is a huge loophole”. The outlet says: “According to a German government readout, Putin told the German leader that gas deliveries would have to be settled in rubles as of 1 April, but that ‘nothing would change for European contract partners’. Payments would continue in euros or dollars and then Gazprombank… would convert the money into rubles.” The Guardian also reports that German chancellor Olaf Scholz said he expects his country will continue to be able to pay for Russian gas in euros from today. While German economy minister Robert Habeck rejected the demands as an unacceptable breach of contract, adding that “it is important for us not to give a signal that we will be blackmailed by Putin”, reports Reuters. The UK government said it was not planning to pay for Russian gas in roubles, BBC News reports. The outlet also notes that “France’s economy minister Bruno Le Maire declined to comment on technical details linked to the latest Russian demands for rouble payment”. And US state department spokesperson Ned Price said the move by Putin was a sign of Moscow’s economic and financial “desperation” as a result of sanctions, Reuters reports. The Financial Times Europe Express column says that Putin’s demand “consolidates Europe’s plan to wean itself off Russian gas”.

Finally, according to German-language business newspaper Handelsblatt, Germany is considering “nationalisation or even expropriation of the German subsidiaries Gazprom and Rosneft”. Bloomberg also covers the story noting that “options being analysed include restructuring Wingas, which supplies about 20% of the German gas market, or finding a new energy provider for its clients”. The Economist looks at whether Germany can “cope without Russian gas”. It notes that the German government, “as well as industrial lobby groups and thinktanks close either to it or to trade unions, argue that a ban would lead to high unemployment, mass poverty and a recession. But some independent economists, as well as a number of opposition politicians, insist that the consequences would be manageable, if substantial”. And Politico assesses EU plans to establish a common gas buying system and picks out five reasons “why it’s going to be messy”.

The White House has confirmed a “historic release” of 1m barrels a day of oil from the country’s emergency stockpile in a bid to cool crude prices, reports the Financial Times, and has also said it will seek to punish some US oil companies that do not begin drilling. The new release is “by far the biggest ever announced”, the paper says, and “will last for six months, amounting to about 180m barrels in total, draining almost a third of the US’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)”. (Reuters has an explainer on the SPR.) The White House also said it was “calling on Congress to make companies pay fees on wells from their leases that they haven’t used in years and on acres of public lands that they are hoarding without producing”. The announcement “comes as the Biden administration is wrestling with the political fallout of high petrol prices and rising inflation”, the Guardian says. The paper notes that “the US average now stands at $4.23 a gallon, up from $2.87 a year ago”, which is “causing a mounting headache for Biden ahead of November’s midterm elections”.

Bloomberg describes the move as Biden’s “strongest endorsement of oil”, adding that “it’s a remarkable shift for a president who campaigned on promises to combat climate change, accelerate renewable fuels and block drilling permits on public lands and waters”. Politico says that “Biden has had to balance his campaign promises to combat climate change…with energy market fluctuations hitting Americans’ pockets.” A second Politico article notes that he’s not the first US president “to see his energy policies turned on their head”, adding: “President Barack Obama campaigned on green credentials while oil production boomed under him, and President Donald Trump’s attempts to roll back environmental regulations resulted in states strengthening their own green energy policies.” In an editorial, the Washington Post says the release is “the right call”. It adds: “Every few cents matter when gasoline prices are sitting at the highest levels Americans have ever seen (not adjusting for inflation) – and Russian President Vladimir Putin is reaping extra revenue that he can use for his war in Ukraine.” However, climate scientist Peter Kalmus writes in the Guardian that “tragically, the Biden administration is choosing to expand the fossil fuel industry at this critical moment”.

The SPR announcement comes as “just hours” after the OPEC+ alliance “again ignored calls from western politicians including Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson to pump oil more quickly”, says another FT article. OPEC+, which consists of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers including Russia, agreed yesterday to just a modest monthly oil output boost, says Reuters, resisting pressure to pump more. OPEC+ has also decided to stop using data from the International Energy Agency, replacing it with reports from consultancies Wood Mackenzie and Rystad Energy, the newswire says, which it describes as “a sign of a hardening standoff with the west”. Reuters columnist Clyde Russell says OPEC+ has “kicked the crude oil can down the road in sticking to their plan for modest monthly output increases”.

The UK’s oil and gas regulator has withdrawn a demand that the fracking firm Cuadrilla plug and abandon two wells in Lancashire, reports the Guardian, “sparking accusations that the government is reopening the door to the controversial technology”. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) had previously told Cuadrilla to permanently plug wells at Preston New Road and Elswick by the end of June, the paper explains, “but, after the exploration company applied on 28 March to have the decision reversed, the NSTA ruled that it could delay plugging the wells for a year”. If no “credible reuse plans are in place” by then, the NSTA said it “expects to reimpose decommissioning requirements”. In a statement, Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan thanked prime minister Boris Johnson and business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng “for seeing the light and realising – just in time – how absurd it would have been to force us to pour concrete down Britain’s only two viable shale gas wells in the middle of an energy crisis”, reports Sky News. Labour’s shadow energy secretary Ed Milliband described the decision as “appalling”, reports ITV News, adding: “This has nothing to do with the energy needs of the country and everything to do with the Conservatives bowing to their backbenchers.” BBC News quotes several campaign groups, such as Greenpeace, whose UK spokesperson said: “If the UK and Europe want to end their dependence on Russian gas, the quickest way to do that is by insulating homes, installing heat pumps and boosting renewables.” The Daily Mail also has the story, while the New York Times reports on “how the Ukraine war gave fracking in the UK a second chance”.

In other UK oil and gas news, the Evening Standard reports that Extinction Rebellion has blocked 10 major oil facilities this morning in protest against the energy crisis facing Britain. The paper says: “The group is working alongside supporters of Just Stop Oil in Essex, Hertfordshire and Birmingham. A number of major oil terminals were forced to suspend operations on Friday morning as demonstrators blocked access roads – preventing tankers from leaving the facilities.”

The United Nations yesterday announced the members of an expert group that will scrutinise corporate pledges to achieve net-zero emissions, reports Reuters, in “an effort to prevent greenwashing as private sector climate plans proliferate”. UN secretary-general António Guterres said the group of 16 experts will analyse the net-zero plans of companies, investors, cities and regions in order to develop stringent and transparent standards to ensure they deliver their promises, the newswire says. At the formal launch on the group – first announced at COP26 in Glasgow last November – Guterres said: “Despite growing pledges of climate action, global emissions are at an all-time high…Tougher net-zero standards and strengthened accountability around the implementation of these commitments can deliver real and immediate emissions cuts.” The team – catchily titled the “High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities” (HLEG) – will be supported by a small full-time staff at the UN’s New York headquarters, says Climate Home News. It will be chaired by Catherine McKenna, who was Canada’s minister of environment and climate change from 2015 to 2019, says ABC News. McKenna urged businesses not to view net-zero pledges as a “get out of jail free card”, the outlet reports, and said she backed the idea of including all emissions in the new standards, including those resulting from the use of a company’s product. BusinessGreen and Agence France-Presse also have the story.

China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) spokesman Liu Youbin said on Wednesday that the MEE will cooperate with the Ministry of Justice to “actively” promote the introduction of the Interim Regulations on the Management of Carbon Emissions Trading, and to “crack down” on falsification and other “illegal” behaviours, and to “firmly say no” to environmental data fraud, China’s state-run publication Jwview reports. Liu stated that the MEE “has always insisted on ‘zero tolerance’ for falsification of carbon emissions data”, Jwview says. The spokesman said that “the quality of environmental data is the lifeline of environmental management” and “the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will continue to maintain a high pressure on environmental data falsification, including carbon emission data”, the article notes. The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News covers the same statement from Liu.

Meanwhile, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reports that China will “raise the retail prices of gasoline and diesel from Friday”, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top planning agency. NDRC announces that “the prices of gasoline and diesel will both increase by 110 yuan (about $11.73) per tonne in the seventh consecutive upward adjustment since the end of last year”, the piece notes. Elsewhere, Reuters reports that China’s retail diesel and gasoline prices are “set to soar to historically high levels, following a surge in global crude oil benchmarks amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict”. The newswire says that Chinese oil refiners – whether they are state-backed or independent – are “lowering operational rates to cope with high oil prices and ebbing fuel demand in the country owing to the mobility restrictions amid COVID-19 outbreaks”.

Elsewhere, China Daily reports that China’s new-energy vehicle (NEV) market is growing “so rapidly that it has become the fourth-largest auto market in the world”, citing an expert. According to experts, China is expected to sell 4.5-5m EVs in 2022, which could see the country “overtake Japan for the third ranking”, the state-run newspaper notes. The outlet adds that the growth in the sale of the country’s NEV “isn’t just driven by government policies but also by the rise in popularity of energy-efficient cars in China”, according to Wang Yunshi, an expert from the University of California-Davis in the US.

Additionally, Bloomberg reports that China’s “oil majors” – PetroChina, Sinopec, and Cnooc – are “boosting spending to take advantage of high prices and help meet political demands for energy security”. The piece says that China’s three state-owned drillers “are planning capital expenditure of at least 530bn yuan ($84bn), up 4.6% from 2021”. A Bloomberg Intelligence analyst says that “oil growth will slow and gas will be bread and butter for them [the three oil majors] now”, the piece notes.

A spokesperson for Boris Johnson’s Downing Street office said yesterday that the prime minister has an “insatiable desire” to expand energy production from wind, reports Reuters. Johnson chaired a roundtable of industry leaders from the wind sector, telling them Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had shown how crucial it is that the UK builds a strong, home-grown renewable energy sector to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, the newswire says. The spokesperson said that “while the UK was already a world leader in offshore wind, the prime minister told attendees that he had an insatiable desire to further maximise supply”. (The news follows reporting by the Financial Times earlier this week that Johnson had “signalled a big role for offshore wind farms in the government’s new energy supply strategy, but played down the prospect of a significant expansion of land-based turbines”.) Sky News science and technology reporter Tom Clarke has an analysis piece on why “rising gas prices helping to make the case for onshore wind and solar”. And the Press Association interviews Sir Dieter Helm – professor of energy policy at the University of Oxford – who says that the UK government should either properly commit to nuclear power or not pursue it at all.

Elsewhere, the Times reports on new analysis that shows “the most efficient heat pumps have reached cost parity with gas boilers over their lifetime for the first time, making them viable for millions of households wanting to cut emissions”. The research, by environmental thinktank the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), finds that “soaring cost of gas means heat pumps are up to £260 a year cheaper to run than a gas boiler”, the paper says. However, the Daily Telegraph focuses on analysis by UK energy firm Octopus that suggests “fewer than one in five homes are ready for a heat pump without additional building work”.

In other domestic energy news, there is widespread reporting of the increase in the energy price cap from today. The Press Association says “the biggest jump in domestic energy bills in living memory has come into effect as charities warn that 2.5m more households are set to fall into ‘fuel stress’ and supplier websites remained unresponsive to customers”. The Independent, BBC News, Financial Times and Bloomberg all report on rising living costs, while the Independent has a separate article explaining why green tariffs are increasing alongside gas and electricity prices. The Times says that “thousands of families face missing out on home energy upgrades before winter because of lengthy Whitehall delays in approving a new insulation scheme”. And an Independent editorial warns that “the only way many households will manage to get by is cutting back on food spending and reducing their usage of gas and electricity at home”.

The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions rebounded last year as lockdowns were lifted and people started to travel to work again, reports Bloomberg. According to preliminary data published by the the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), total emissions in 2021 “were 424.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 4.7% higher than in the previous year”, the outlet says. However, it adds, emissions “were still 5.2% lower than the pre-pandemic level in 2019, suggesting that the nation’s long-term decline is continuing as the power sector burn less fossil fuels”. New Scientist leads with the line that the 2021 increase in emissions is “the biggest annual rise in the UK since records started in 1990”. The outlet adds that “the increase is a blip in the UK’s long-term trend, which has seen emissions almost halve since 1990”. Reuters quotes BEIS, which said the rise in emissions “is primarily due to the increase in the use of road transport as nationwide lockdowns were eased, along with increases in emissions from power stations and the residential sector”. The Independent, Sky News and BusinessGreen all have similar reporting. (Carbon Brief analysis published in January revealed that the carbon intensity of UK electricity generation rose last year by nearly 10%.)

As the price cap for UK domestic energy bills rises by 54% from today, an editorial in the Daily Telegraph says that “the debate about higher gas and electricity charges has been raging for weeks yet only now will the financial pain be felt”. The chancellor “has offered some help but nowhere near enough to cover the extra charges”, the paper says, “but nor should he”. It continues: “The idea that billions can always be borrowed and dispensed for every eventuality took hold in the pandemic but is simply not sustainable. Higher energy costs will have to be paid by consumers – and another shock is in store later this year when the cap is revised again.” The paper notes the “alternatives”, which include “exploit[ing] our own supplies of oil and gas though as these commodities are traded internationally it won’t necessarily mean lower prices”. Increasing domestic production would, however, “offer greater security of supply”, the paper says, adding that the same could be said for a commitment to renewable forms “other than wind such as nuclear”. (The newspaper does not explain why it thinks increasing wind power would not boost domestic power supplies.) The editorial says that “we still await the energy strategy Boris Johnson promised a few weeks ago and which urgently needs to set out a long-term plan for the country”, and concludes: “In the short-term, the chill financial winds are about to be felt.”

Writing in the Times, James Forsyth – political editor of the Spectator – accuses British MPs of being “spineless” for their “failure to properly back onshore wind and fracking fails to match the moment”. He continues: “In these circumstances, the UK should surely be doing everything to boost supply, whether with onshore wind, fracking, more production of North Sea oil and gas, floating solar panels onto reservoirs and fixing them onto school roofs. We need a war-time effort and are instead getting a cautious approach that fears scaring the horses. It is as if people had been told to dig for victory but were allowed to keep their favourite shrubs.” If Europe’s security is in danger, “it seems odd for MPs to shirk what’s necessary due to local concerns”, he says: “If people don’t like the idea of onshore wind now, what will they think about a nuclear power station down the road in 10 years time?”

An editorial in the Sun also calls for fracking to “launch a UK energy revolution”. It says: “Anti-fracking campaigns succeeded in Britain and across Europe. They were reportedly part-bankrolled by Moscow to maintain its grip on gas supplies. [Note: No evidence has ever been presented to back up this claim which has largely been promoted by climate-sceptic lobbyists and their media allies.] It knew shale could provide the UK with cheap home-made energy for decades. The government must give it the nod. Then start winning over the public too.” Jeremy Warner – assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph – writes in the paper’s Economic Intelligence newsletter that “funding of energy renewal is not a good use of taxpayers’ money, even when deemed a matter of national security”. Yet, he says, “a government bung is what both the nuclear and fracking lobbies demand, and in the case of the former, it seems to be what Number 10 has all but agreed”. Warner notes that “fracking can quickly be dismissed as a potential solution, and not just because it is politically unpopular. The more tangible obstacle is that of attracting the investment to make it happen”. On nuclear, Warner says “with the possible exception of the first generation Magnox power stations, virtually all nuclear build in the UK has been ruinously expensive, costing far more than almost any imaginable alternative”. Instead, Warner argues, “a combination of multiple smaller reactors, fast developing storage technology to complement intermittent renewables, and energy efficiency would seem a much more promising path”.

Finally, writer and researcher Dr Alice Bell pens an article on OpenDemocracy which also focuses on the UK government’s forthcoming energy security statement. She writes: “I’m hoping we’ll see new opportunities not just for the deployment of renewables at scale, but ways to better involve and engage UK communities too. Otherwise, we risk it simply rebounding and being dragged into yet more decades of delay.”

Changes in atmospheric ozone levels over 1955-2000 were responsible for almost one-third of warming in the upper 200 metres of the Southern Ocean over this time, according to new research. The study finds that 60% of warming was due to increasing ozone levels in the troposphere – the bottom layer of the atmosphere – while 40% was driven by the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. The authors use models from the fifth and sixth coupled model intercomparison projects for this analysis. “As the ozone hole begins to heal, concentrations of harmful ground-level ozone are also increasing. Work now shows the impacts that both changes are having on the Southern Ocean and our wider climate system,” says an accompanying News and Views paper.

“Global warming will probably aggravate drought-induced declines in annual tropical vegetation productivity,” new research suggests. The authors use tree ring data to show the link between rainfall, temperature and vegetation productivity – measured using annual woody biomass growth – in the tropics. They find that annual woody biomass growth typically increases with dry-season precipitation and decreases with dry-season maximum temperature. “Our study reveals a previously underappreciated role of dry-season climate variability in driving the dynamics of tropical vegetation productivity and consequently in influencing the land carbon sink,” the authors say.