Chancellor George Osborne is facing calls from his own Conservative backbenchers to confirm how the government will support clean energy post 2020. A letter last week signed by around 15 MPs backed support for renewable energy projects and urged the Chancellor to use the budget to extend the funding available through the Levy Control Framework “so that we can keep moving the cost curve of renewable energy downwards.” On Climate Home, Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit says National Grid, Energy UK and the National Infrastructure Commission have all come out with visions for a smart, diversified and flexible energy system, but will the Chancellor deliver? Energy Live News also looks ahead to today’s budget announcements, citing a Green Alliance report that found investing in renewable energy generation rather than the government’s current low carbon energy could save the UK around £420 million between 2020 and 2025.

The Obama administration announced yesterday it will drop plans to allow companies to search for oil in the Atlantic Ocean off Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia following strong opposition from coastal communities. When you factor in market dynamics, limited infrastructure and economic activities from fishing, the Department of Interior said “now is not the time to offer oil and gas leasing”. Reuters, BusinessGreen and The Hill all reported the president’s plans to withdraw licenses. Though the decision consolidates Obama’s record for environmental protection, the government said it will still consider leases at three locations in the Arctic, reports The Guardian. Inside Climate News, Reuters and The Financial Times all have more on the story.

The Japanese environment ministry is expected to unveil its plans for how the county intends to meet its long term climate plan in May, which commits it to slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2030. Despite a notable rise in solar capacity, future emission cuts will depend on how swiftly the country can scale back coal consumption and whether it reinstalls the fleet of nuclear reactors mothballed following the Fukushima disaster, says Climate Home. The plan includes scaled up investment in clean tech R&D, rolling out of hydrogen fuel cell and renewable energy technologies, and expanded energy efficiency programmes, reports BusinessGreen.

The UK Committee on Climate Change has called for Scotland to pursue a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 61% by 2030, a goal it says is challenging but achievable. In its annual report to Holyrood, the CCC urged it to adopt targets to install low carbon heating in 30% of homes by 2030, increase electric vehicle sales to 65% of new car and van sales by 2030 and greatly expand renewables. BusinessGreen and Energy Live News have more.

Hollywood film star and climate philanthropist, Leonardo DiCaprio, has contributed to a $26m fund to help the Seychelles safeguard an area of the Indian ocean the size of Sweden. DiCaprio said that the deal would enhance food security, mitigate the effects of climate change on the low lying islands and protect ocean ecosystems.

We’re currently swamping the Earth’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases, says James Dyke, a lecturer in complex systems at the University of Southampton, with last month seeing the largest monthly temperature anomaly on record. February didn’t break climate change records – it obliterated them, he says, yet we appear uninterested in the environmental changes happening right in front of our eyes. An editorial in The Guardian says that against this backdrop, Monday’s announcement about legislation to enact a zero-carbon emissions target may have been met with a small cheer but don’t hold you breath for the budget, it says, as the pledge was made by a government with a “well-established record for preferring style over substance”. While part of the current high temperatures are down to the – now subsiding – El Nino, we’re getting uncomfortably close to the 2C limit agreed in Paris, write two climate scientists in The Conversation.

How should we get people’s attention when the danger of climate change does not arouse much public passion, asks Dave Roberts. Framing climate change as an economic opportunity, a way to spur technological innovation, a national security threat, a way of reducing local pollutant or a religious or moral imperative all have their time and place but the most broadly accepted is still “it’s dangerous and we should do what we can to avoid it.” Keep plugging away at it, says Roberts.

Wednesday’s budget is an acid test of the government’s Paris commitment, says a letter in today’s Guardian signed by representatives from, among others, Friends of the Earth, the New Economics Foundation and Oil Change International. It reads: “The chancellor has to change course. He should scrap subsidies that keep the British economy hooked on fossil fuels, and instead set out a strategy to help communities currently dependent on fossil fuel jobs to diversify and to rebuild around world-leading clean technology.”

A new study investigates the abrupt strengthening of the land carbon sink in the late 1980s. The findings suggest the cause is an increase in plant growth across northern regions of Europe and Asia, in response to warming temperatures, and northern Africa as a result of increased rainfall. It’s uncertain whether these two changes are connected, the researchers say, but fluctuations in the North Atlantic Ocean play a role. Without this prominent shift in the land sink, atmospheric CO2 levels would be 12 parts per million higher than they are today, the researchers note.

Changes in rainfall during dry seasons can affect plant growth in dry ecosystems for the whole year, a new study says. Observed data suggests that dry seasons in dry ecosystems are receiving less rainfall, while wet seasons are getting more. The researchers found that annual plant growth in these areas is particularly sensitive to the intensity of the dry season, whereas more rainfall during the wet season has a smaller effect. By 2100, increasingly intense dry seasons could cause a reduction in annual growth of 10-13%, the paper says.