A top US federal prosecutor has quit after declining a request from Donald Trump-appointed staff to investigate Joe Biden’s climate spending, CNN reports. The top criminal prosecutor in the Washington, DC, US Attorney’s Office, Denise Cheung, “had been asked to shepherd an investigation into an Environmental Protection Agency funding decision during the Biden administration and then use DOJ’s powers to freeze that funding”, sources tell CNN. It continues: “She refused the order and resigned, in part because she believed there wasn’t sufficient evidence to take that step at the time, as well as seeking to protect lower-level prosecutors from the work, sources said.” The Guardian says Cheung was asked to open a grand jury investigation into EPA grants “based largely on an undercover video”. It adds that the story exposes “deepening rifts in the US’s premier law enforcement agency”.

Elsewhere, the New York Times reports that multiple programmes aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by climate change are among those that could be axed by Trump’s dismantling of USAid, the government’s main international development arm. It reports: “One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in the strategic port city of Basra, Iraq, where dry taps had caused violent anti-government protests. USAid’s oldest programme, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, ran a forecasting system that allowed aid workers in places like war-torn South Sudan to prepare for catastrophic floods last year.” On the current status of these projects, the New York Times says: “The fate of these programmes remains uncertain. The Trump administration has essentially sought to shutter the agency. A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order. On the ground, much of the work has stopped.” Elsewhere, Axios reports that Trump’s state staff lay-offs are “likely to expand” to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), both responsible for much scientific research on climate change, as soon as this week. The Guardian reports on how Trump’s dismantling of climate science and policy is “turbocharging” legal efforts to hold polluters responsible for emissions. E&E News reports on how Trump’s oil ambitions are facing “harsh economic and geologic realities” as US oil production growth is starting to dwindle.

In addition, the New York Times is among publications reporting that an extreme winter storm has descended on the central and eastern US this week, “delivering record-breaking cold and life-threatening low wind chills even to regions accustomed to frigid temperatures”. The Associated Press says North Dakota has experienced record-cold temperatures amid the storm.

Several UK publications cover comments made by Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, a far-right political party, calling for the “reindustralisation” of the nation. Addressing the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, a gathering of far-right politicians including many climate sceptics, Farage called for the UK to boost its heavy industry, including through more domestic production of steel, oil and gas, the Guardian says. The Daily Telegraph says Farage “criticised net-zero and said the UK should aim to become an ‘energy exporter’”. The Financial Times says that Farage also called for UK birth rates to increase and said the west must remember its “Judeo-Christian culture”. DeSmog focuses on Farage’s comments on climate science, noting that he said it is “absolutely nuts” that CO2 is considered a greenhouse gas. Farage added: “I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not, but there are so many other massive factors.”

Elsewhere, there is widespread coverage of news that UK energy bills are forecast to rise by 5% in April. The Guardian says that the average gas and electricity bill for a typical household in Britain is expected to rise by £85 from April to £1,823 a year under the price cap from the energy regulator Ofgem, according to the leading forecaster Cornwall Insight. It says the rise is linked to “a slump in Europe’s gas storage levels”. An earlier Guardian exclusive says energy and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband has written an “urgent letter” to Ofgem saying “the energy regulator must move faster to protect consumers”. BusinessGreen says the bill hike has prompted experts to call for a rollout of energy efficiency measures and renewables to reduce “reliance on costly gas”. In a story trailed on its frontpage, the Daily Telegraph reports that, although Miliband has “blamed the [energy bill] rise on surging gas prices”, unnamed “industry sources have pointed out” that “an information page about business energy costs, prepared by his own officials at the Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero, blames spending on renewable energy projects as well”. The Daily Telegraph says the webpage is several years old and does not provide a link. Separately, the Daily Telegraph reports that funding from the government’s National Wealth Fund has been “ploughed” into making sustainable “wooden bottles”.

Finally, BBC News and BusinessGreen report that Tata Steel’s bid to build a £1.25bn electric arc furnace at its Port Talbot steelworks has been approved by planners.

Brazil’s government yesterday  approved a decision to join the OPEC+ group of major oil-exporting nations, just months ahead of hosting the COP30 climate summit, the Associated Press reports. Brazil was first invited to join the group in 2023, after president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) began his third term, AP says. It adds that Brazil’s participation will be limited to the “Charter of Cooperation”, a permanent forum for OPEC and OPEC+ countries to discuss industry-related issues and the nation will not participate in decision-making.

Japan yesterday approved an energy plan to increase the nation’s reliance on nuclear in a “major policy shift”, BBC News reports. The move comes as the nation “seeks to meet growing demand from power-hungry sectors such as AI and semiconductors”, BBC News says. The energy plan says that, by 2040, nuclear energy should account for 20% of Japan’s grid supply in 2040, more than double the 8.5% share in 2023, according to the article. It adds that the plan calls for “maximising the use of nuclear energy” and has dropped a reference to “reducing reliance on nuclear energy”. Kyodo News reports that Japan’s new energy plan also emphasises renewables “to ensure energy security in the future and achieve net-zero emissions”.

Reuters covers new analysis for Carbon Brief revealing that “China invested 6.8tn yuan ($940bn) in clean energy in 2024, approaching the $1.12tn in global investment in fossil fuels”. Clean energy’s contribution to China’s GDP “grew to 10% in 2024, up from 9% in 2023”, the newswire says, adding: “China’s burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) industry contributed the largest share of GDP, with 3tn yuan of GDP from EV and hybrid production and 1.4tn yuan from factory investment. Charging infrastructure contributed another 122bn yuan.” The Guardian quotes Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans, who says: “China has been investing heavily in these sectors for a while now. Perhaps the scale and the pace of things has taken people by surprise, but China’s been developing its electric vehicle industry for a long time now.” Singapore’s Straits Times also has the story.

Meanwhile, Xinhua says China’s “first successfully developed deep coal-measure gas field” has achieved cumulative production of over 3bn cubic metres. The state-supporting newspaper Global Times reports that the “rapid development” of large-scale wind and solar power bases in “sandy areas, rocky areas and deserts” in China’s western regions is a “critical strategic move” for the country. The state-run newspaper China Daily publishes a response to President Xi Jinping’s meeting with entrepreneurs in the private sector by Yang Aiqing, president of solar company JA Solar, saying that the global “carbon neutrality” blueprint and domestic construction of the “new power system” present a “historic opportunity” for the solar sector. Bloomberg reports that the China Meteorological Administration, the country’s weather agency, is discussing the use of AI startup DeepSeek to “power its forecasts and observations” as it seeks to become a “weather superpower”. 

Elsewhere, International Energy News carries an article from Greenpeace discussing the impact of China’s reform of renewable electricity pricing. State broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) publishes an opinion article by Wang Peng, a research fellow at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Renmin University of China, saying that the renewables pricing reform will “reshape” the energy industry’s “development logic”. BJX News publishes an interpretation of the Energy Law by top economic planning body the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration (NEA) and other government bureaus, which states the main purpose of the law is to “achieve high-quality development of energy”, “ensure national energy security” and “promote green and low-carbon economic and social development”. 

In other news, a new study warns that Europe is at risk of becoming “an assembly plant” for Chinese battery makers unless it develops a “regulatory framework for knowledge sharing”, the Financial Times reports. The China Daily reports that Beijing has been “intensifying efforts to secure energy independence” amid trade tensions with the US, increasing investments in renewable energy technologies. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) covers the the new action plan for developing energy storage (see yesterday’s Daily Briefing), saying it comes as the US “pressur[es] war-ravaged Ukraine to surrender half of its rare earth deposits in exchange for security guarantees”. Finally, the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports that a trend of “eco-friendly” and “green” consumption is “sweeping across China’s young people”.

In an “exclusive” interview with the Business Standard, UN Climate chief Simon Stiell “urge[d] India to seize the incredible opportunities available” and “double down on solar and other clean energy industries” which will help it gain “a stronger competitive advantage in the region and globally.” Stiell tells the newspaper that he “expect[s] a strong focus on climate adaptation at COP30” where countries “need to agree on and operationalise indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation” that informs countries’ national adaptation plans. Separately, the country’s climate and environment ministry tells Down to Earth that India’s first national adaptation plan “should be ready by the end of the year, before COP30” in Brazil. 

Elsewhere, ministry officials also tell the Hindu that “India is in the final stages of preparing its first ever biannual transparency report” to the UN, including an updated inventory of greenhouse gas emissions “which will have data up to 2022”. Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump yesterday announced that the US will “support India’s bid to join the International Energy Agency as a full member”, a second Hindu story reports. According to the outlet, Modi and Trump “recommitted to the US-India Energy Security Partnership, including in oil, gas, and civil nuclear energy” and are “moving forward with plans” to build US-designed nuclear reactors in India “through large scale localisation and possible technology transfer.”

Writing for Conservative Home, Peter Franklin, associate editor of the conservative website UnHerd, tackles the reasons why the once “proudly” green Conservative Party has turned against its own net-zero policy under new leader Kemi Badenoch. Franklin puts this down to “a series of unfortunate events”, saying: “Firstly, the left decided to turn the fight against climate change into a culture war. Under the influence of Greta Thunberg and friends, a unifying issue became a divisive one…A bad situation was made much worse by the great disruptions of early 2020s i.e. the Covid pandemic, followed by chronic supply chain problems and the cost of living crisis. With truly horrible timing, the Climate Change Committee sent a letter to the government objecting to new oil and gas production in the North Sea just as Russia invaded Ukraine.” Elsewhere, also for Conservative Home, Conservative Environment Network leader Sam Hall says Reform UK’s energy policies are “socialist”.

In other UK comment, prominent climate sceptic Matt Ridley has a full-page comment in the Daily Mail attacking climate policy, where he baselessly describes renewables as “costly and unreliable”, heat pumps as “futile” and electric vehicles as “inconvenient”. And a Daily Express comment article by military history author and political commentator Tim Newark has the headline (in the print edition): “Elderly are cold and UK growth is feeble thanks to net-zero.”

Subtropical precipitation over the coming decades could be greater than current projections indicate – especially over Asia, Africa and the Pacific Ocean – according to a new paper. The authors use “emerging constraint analyses” and observation-based data on changes in the strength of the Hadley circulation – a major atmospheric circulation system that cycles air between the equator and the mid-latitudes. The researchers find the projected weakening of the northern hemisphere Hadley circulation will “probably be larger than current predictions”. This more “pronounced” weakening of the flow results in a doubling of the subtropical precipitation increase compared with current forecasts, they note. The findings, they claim, provide “more accurate tropical circulation and precipitation projections”.