The world’s top ocean court has issued a decision ruling that greenhouse gases are a pollutant that could cause irreversible harm to marine life and nations have a duty to reduce them, the New York Times reports. It explains: “The advisory opinion by the court, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, is not binding, but it stated that, legally, nations must take all necessary measures to reduce, control and prevent marine pollution caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions. The 21 judges on the tribunal were unanimous in their opinion, and experts say it could lead to more wide-ranging claims for damages against polluting nations.” The ruling is “also likely to affect how other international and national courts address the growing dangers posed by climate change”, the New York Times says. The coalition of small island nations who brought the case hailed the ruling as a “historic” victory, Climate Home News reports. It quotes prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne saying that the decision “marks a historic milestone in our collective journey towards environmental justice and climate governance”. Climate Home News says that the Oceans Court ruled that countries must go beyond the Paris Agreement when cutting emissions, arguing that the agreement sets a floor rather than a ceiling because it does not require countries to cut emissions “to any specific level according to a mandatory timeline”. The court also said wealthy nations must cut emissions faster than developing countries, the Guardian says. The Associated Press adds that it is “the first ruling to come in three cases in which advisory opinions have been sought from international courts about climate change”.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times reports that a first-of-its-kind criminal case has been filed against the fossil fuel company TotalEnergies and its shareholders by people who have lost family members or suffered harm in weather events made more extreme by climate change. The victims, along with non-profit groups, are accusing the company of criminal wrongdoing, including involuntary manslaughter, the FT says. The victims include those affected by the Greek wildfires, Storm Alex across Europe and Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe, the FT says. The Guardian reports that the public prosecutor in France who received the file has three months to decide whether to open a judicial investigation or dismiss the complaint. Finally, Reuters reports that a Swiss parliamentary committee has rejected the ruling by a top European court that said Switzerland had violated the human rights of its citizens by not doing enough to prevent climate change.

Delhi “felt like a furnace” as eleven weather stations in the national capital region recorded temperatures over 45C on Monday, “prompting weather officials to extend a red alert till Friday and the government to order schools still open to shut for summer vacations”, the Hindustan Times reports. The story adds that Najafgarh in southwest Delhi recorded “the country’s hottest temperature with a maximum of 47.4C” with soaring temperatures driving the city’s peak power demand to 7,572 megawatts, “the highest so far this year”. This week will also see “election campaigning reach a fever pitch in the capital, which will go to polls on Saturday”, the paper adds. While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a “green” alert for Saturday – “which indicates no extreme weather event is likely – an unnamed IMD official tells the paper “the same maximum [of 45C] is likely on Saturday, too”. Other state governments including Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan have also ordered schools to close, India Today reports. Euronews Green reports that prime minister “[Narendra] Modi and his main challenger Rahul Gandhi were undeterred from holding rallies in Delhi”. Context News says that “heat was used as a tool to suppress [a] number of votes in villages in [Uttar Pradesh]…by deliberately making lines longer and increasing the time it takes for casting a single vote”. 

An editorial in the Economic Times says: “Adapting to extreme heat and prolonged heatwaves, and building resilience, must become core to the planning process.” It calls for “solutions [that] do not contribute to exacerbating the heat”. The Economic Times reports sustainable architect Benny Kuriakose pointing to “studies as far back as three decades ago” showing that construction of “concrete, steel and glass” buildings can create “urban heat islands”, adding that if “no adaptation measures are taken, [India] could face a situation” where the government “bans” new construction. Separately, Business Standard carries a piece on the impact of rising heat on India’s public health infrastructure. 

In energy news, the Economic Times reports that India is projected to add nearly 25 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity between 2025 and 2028, according to credit ratings agency CRISIL. Finally, the Financial Times carries an investigation that suggests that the “Adani Group passed off low-quality coal as far more expensive cleaner fuel in transactions with an Indian state power utility” and that it “may have fraudulently obtained bumper profits at the expense of air quality, since using low-grade coal for power” means burning more coal.

Reuters reports that US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said that the US and Europe needed to respond to China’s industrial overcapacity in a “strategic and united way”. According to the newswire, Yellen told reporters that G7 finance ministers shared US concerns about Chinese efforts to dominate clean energy industries, but did not need to ensure “detailed coordination” on trade actions. The Financial Times says that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen aims to take a different approach to the US tariffs, as the EU wants “competition” and to “trade together”, but that she said trade must be “fair and by the rules”. The Financial Times “Swamp Notes” newsletter says that US president Joe Biden’s approach is “part of a multipronged and increasingly nuanced strategy to create a fundamentally new and fairer trading system”, which will “ultimately benefit not just the US, but the world”. The New York Times carries a comment by Steve Rattner, counsellor to the treasury secretary under the Obama administration, arguing that US tariffs on Chinese clean energy products “raise prices for consumers and probably cost more jobs than they save”, adding that the US “need[s] to resume removing trade barriers, not increase them”. In the Daily Telegraph, international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard argues that the UK and Europe “will be forced to follow Biden’s tariffs against China whether [they] like it or not”.

The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that there have been “acknowledgements [within China] that institutional and mechanism factors – including local governments’ excessive involvement – have long led to instances of overcapacity weighing on the economy”. State-run newspaper China Daily quotes an official in the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planning body, saying that the “slight production surplus” in China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) industry “does not signify overcapacity”, adding that the “outdated capacities will naturally phase out”. Bloomberg reports that some Chinese NEV manufacturers are taking “ballooning” lengths of time to pay their suppliers, in a “further sign of stress in the nation’s increasingly cutthroat auto market”. 

The Wall Street Journal says that “Chinese companies are becoming more dominant, not less” in critical mineral mining, despite the efforts of other countries. It quotes one expert saying that Chinese companies are “making investments on top of their already massive investments in all aspects of the critical-minerals supply chain”. Economic newspaper Caixin reports that “China led the world in green bond issuance for the second consecutive year in 2023, with a total of $131bn for both the onshore and offshore markets”. Finally, the SCMP covers warnings by forecasters of torrential downpours, with up to 50% more rain than usual in southern China’s Pearl River region over the next 30 days. The article, which does not mention climate change, says authorities have warned of heightened flood risk. 

The Financial Times reports that Shell shareholders have largely backed the oil major’s decision to weaken its climate targets “in a blow for environmental groups that have pushed the company to take stronger action to cut emissions”. Around 78% of shareholders voted on Tuesday for Shell’s revised energy transition strategy, which sees a slowing of emissions cuts, the FT says. It continues: “While the 22% vote against the strategy is a significant rebellion, it was in line with 2022 and 2023, when 20% of investors opposed the progress Shell had made against its previous strategy.” It adds that shareholders also rejected a resolution filed by the activist group Follow This and 26 other investors urging the company to set tighter climate targets. The vote is a “setback” for Follow This, who “has filed climate resolutions at eight of the last nine Shell annual meetings, reaching peak support of 30% in 2021”, Bloomberg adds. Elsewhere, Axios reports on the “widening battle over Exxon’s shareholder lawsuit”.

After weeks of speculation, the UK has announced that it will not weaken future UK climate targets by carrying over surplus emissions reductions achieved in previous years, Politico reports. In a written ministerial statement published on Tuesday, energy minister Justin Tomlinson said the government is “already on track to over-deliver” in the fourth carbon budget, without relying on the “carry-over”, Politico says. It notes that the idea of carrying over that surplus was being actively considered in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. In February, the UK’s independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned that using the surplus could weaken efforts to curb emissions, Reuters adds. [(Carbon Brief analysis at the time showed that carrying over the surplus would have allowed UK emissions to rise by 15% while still technically meeting climate goals.])

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that London’s High Court has ruled that the government exceeded its powers by lowering the threshold last year for police to impose conditions on peaceful protests, a move which would require more substantial changes to the law. The Times covers a report from Lord Walney, the government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, that says police should be given powers to ban public protests “where there is a significant threat of disruption or a risk of abusive behaviour”. Lord Walney called for police to be given powers to crack down on groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action, including forcing them to pay compensation to people and businesses affected by their actions, the Times says. [The legal charity Plan B says that Lord Walney has a “conflict of interest” because he holds various roles that are supportive of arms and fossil-fuel companies.] 

In addition, the Times reports that wind overtook gas as Britain’s biggest source of power connected to the central transmission grid in the 12 months to April 2024. BBC News reports that Wylfa in Anglesey, North Wales, has been “chosen as the preferred site for a large-scale [new] nuclear power plant”. It notes: “Japanese operator Hitachi cancelled plans for a new nuclear reactor in 2020 and mothballed the site.” The Daily Telegraph reports the news in a story trailed on its frontpage.

Many UK publications report on a new analysis from the World Weather Attribution network of scientists finding that the seemingly “never-ending” rain this winter in the UK and Ireland was made 10 times more likely and 20% wetter by human-caused climate change. The Guardian says: “More than a dozen storms battered the region in quick succession between October and March, which was the second-wettest such period in nearly two centuries of records. The downpour led to severe floods, at least 20 deaths, severe damage to homes and infrastructure, power blackouts, travel cancellations, and heavy losses of crops and livestock.” The analysis says that the level of rain caused by the storms would have occurred just once in 50 years without climate change, but is now expected every five years owing to 1.2C of temperature rise Earth has experienced, according to the Guardian. It adds: “If fossil fuel burning is not rapidly cut and the global temperature reaches 2C in the next decade or two, such severe wet weather would occur every three years on average, the analysis showed.” The Daily Telegraph notes that UK winters will get “mouldier” because of increased downpours driven by climate change. There is further coverage in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and the Press Association.

The Times has an editorial based on the news that wind was the largest source of power connected to Britain’s electricity transmission grid in the 12 months to April 2024, for the first time. It says: “Creating 32% of our needs, it narrowly pipped gas, at 31%. Part of this, admittedly, is due to gas’s decline, with more electricity now imported directly along cables from France and Denmark. Yet the real-world contribution of wind is nonetheless surging. In 2013 wind overtook all other forms of generation for a single hour. In 2020 it happened for a month. Now, a year…This year’s figures should remind us that, in the long term, even a daunting initial investment is worth it. The UK is only the sixth country to hit this milestone, and by far the largest. This should be a source of national pride. Secure, sustainable, affordable energy is well within our reach.”

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Guardian says that London’s high court “has preserved a fundamental right” by ruling that the government’s police actions against protesters last year were unlawful. It says: “The rights of non-violent assembly are among our fundamental freedoms, providing a touchstone to distinguish between a free society and a totalitarian one. Liberty, the civil rights campaigners who took the government to court, ought to be congratulated for standing up for all our rights. At the heart of this case was whether a minister could, without primary legislation, decide what words meant in law. The court, thankfully, thought that such matters were best left to the dictionary.” The Sun publishes an editorial endorsing a report from Lord Walney saying that police should be given new powers to curb protesters. 

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph publishes an article by prolific climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark claiming that “electric cars make getting around as a pedestrian increasingly impossible”. It comes as MailOnline covers research claiming that the average rate of pedestrian collisions per 100m miles of road travel was higher for electric vehicles and hybrids than for petrol and diesel cars. [The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, covers pedestrian collisions in Great Britain during 2013-2017. Since then, the UK government has introduced “New noise systems to stop ‘silent’ electric cars and improve safety.”]

In addition, Bloomberg covers a BloombergNEF report saying that “governments and companies need to spend an extra $34tn on the clean energy transition between now and 2050 to reach net-zero emissions”. It continues: “The research group’s 250-page New Energy Outlook report, which crunches 18m datapoints, says that amount is 19% more than what’s expected in its base-case scenario.” The article notes: “BNEF’s figures are based on the upfront capital needed to build green infrastructure and don’t include operating expenses. This means any scenario that consumes more fossil fuels than needed for being on track to net-zero could ultimately be more expensive to implement – though BNEF has not yet run those calculations.” [The analysis also excludes the cost of climate impacts.]

Rachel Keenan, a writer who is a recipient of the Guardian’s 2023/24 Scott Trust bursary, explains how it feels to watch her home town of Inverbervie in north-east Scotland “disappear into the sea”. She covers local debates over the extent to which coastal erosion affecting her town is influenced by climate change. Elsewhere, PBS Newshour has a video report on how people living on the UK’s east coast are suing the government for failing to protect their homes from climate change.

Replacing the traditional sugar from cane or beets in chocolate by using part of the cocoa pod husk could reduce the environmental impact of chocolate while also improving its nutritional value, a new study suggests. Using “cocoa pulp juice concentrate”, the researchers repurpose the often-discarded pectin-rich inner layer of the cocoa pod to convert it into a gel. Replacing sugar with this gel gives chocolate a comparable sweet taste “with higher fibre and reduced saturated fatty acid content”, the study says. A life cycle assessment shows that “large-scale production of this chocolate could reduce land use and global warming potential compared with average European dark chocolate production”, it adds. An accompanying news and views article says “the implementation of this technology on a large scale will benefit consumers, producers and the environment”.

A new “brief communication” paper suggests that the idea of cross-border transport of CO2 “hinders public acceptance of carbon capture and storage” (CCS). Conducting online surveys in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK, the researchers find that public acceptance “become[s] negative when CCS scenarios with cross-border CO2 imports are presented”. Public concerns are also “unlikely to be offset by compensation”, the authors note, “presenting a challenge for policymakers”.

An assessment of the meals eaten in restaurants suggests that China’s food system greenhouse gas emissions account for 37% of their total emissions. The researchers estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of 540 dishes from 36 cuisines using data from more than 800,000 restaurants in China’s provincial capital cities. They calculate China’s total food-system emissions at 4.6bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent (CO2e), or an average of 8.4kg of CO2e per dish. While these emissions “may not be consistent” with the Paris Agreement aim of limiting warming to 1.5C or 2C, the study says, “transitioning towards low-emission cuisines and dishes could change that by reducing emissions by 38-69%”. An accompanying news and views article says that the study provides “constructive insights for the restaurant industry that faces the challenges of sustainable transition of diet consumption and the government that struggles for emission management of the food system”.