The US and Canada announced yesterday that they aim to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40-45% below 2012 levels by 2025, and said they would begin discussing new regulations with industry in the coming weeks. Methane is an important contributor to global warming, and is the principal component of natural gas. The step was warmly welcomed by environmental groups but criticised by the industry which warned of the impact on shale energy. During their presentation of a “shared vision on cutting emissions”, the two presidents also promised to promote the North American carbon markets, the Guardian reports. The commitments are “a dramatic role reversal for two countries once derided as climate change villains”, the Guardian writes. Reuters, Scientific American, InsideClimate News and the New York Times also cover the story.

The French state auditor has urged EDF to ask “serious questions” before going ahead with Hinkley Point, raising fresh doubts about plans to build the world’s most expensive nuclear power plant in Somerset, the Times reports on its frontpage. China, which is paying for a third of the power station, expressed anger over the delays, and demanded a meeting at the French embassy in Beijing to discuss the situation. Yesterday, the Cour des Comptes — the equivalent of Britain’s National Audit Office — warned EDF that the project could suffer expensive delays. Similar projects in Finland and at Flamanville in France have run billions of euros over budget and are years behind schedule, the Times writes. The Financial Times also carries the story.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere grew more in past 12 months than at any time in the past 56 years, according to the latest measurements from NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has been recording CO2 levels since the 1950s. The spike is due to a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather pattern, scientists say. They argue that the latest figures should encourage global leaders to make progress on the Paris Climate Agreement: “This should serve as a wake-up call to governments about the need to sign the Paris Climate Agreement and to take urgent action to make the cuts in CO2 emissions necessary to keep global temperature rises to well below 2C”, said the WMO’s Petteri Taalas. The Independent also has the story.

Planting trees around rivers could reduce the height of flooding in towns by up to 20%, according to a new study for the Environment Agency. Trees round a feeder stream can slow the rush of rainwater and save properties from flooding, the research concludes. The study advises taking a strategic approach, because foresting a whole catchment would be “counter-productive”. There has been a rush of interest in natural methods of flood prevention, the BBC reports, although the study warns that natural methods do not always work.

Figures obtained by the Guardian show a 62% cut to the research budget to improve forecasting and defences over seven years, despite calls for such evidence in the wake of winter flooding. The annual funding fell from £4.89m in 2008-09 to £1.85m in 2015-16. The news comes after forty-six flood warnings were in place in England and Wales yesterday. Kerry McCarthy, the Labour shadow environment secretary, told the Guardian: “These short-sighted cuts to research funding completely undermine the government’s claims to be taking an evidence-based approach to policy. To cut Defra’s funding of this crucial R&D programme by half last year, yet again demonstrates this government’s failure to prepare and protect our country against the floods.”

China will expand its strategic uranium reserve as part of its “five-year plan” for 2016-2020, with the aim of ensuring it has enough fuel to supply a massive program of new nuclear reactors, Reuters reports. Beijing began stockpiling uranium in 2007 and is estimated to have 74,000 tonnes of inventory, or about nine years of current demand, although demand is expected to outstrip domestic supply in coming years.

An £800 pollution tax should be put on sales of new diesel cars, to encourage move to low-emission vehicles and reduce air pollution, according to the thinktank Policy Exchange. They suggest that the proceeds be used for a scrappage scheme for older diesels. The idea is also backed by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson. “If we are to clean up air pollution, then government needs to recognise that diesel is the primary cause of the problem, and to promote a shift to alternatives”, Richard Howard, head of environment and energy at Policy Exchange, told the Guardian.

After supplying the uranium that fuelled the disaster at Fukushima, Australia should have taken steps to review and reconsider its role in the global nuclear trade argues Dave Sweeney, nuclear free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Good government sometimes consists of “correcting a potentially disastrous mistake before it is too late”, argues an editorial in the Times. Hinkley Point C is such a mistake, it says, being too expensive for British consumers and too expensive for its main investor. The more it is scrutinised, the worse it looks for British customers, energy security and national security, the Times writes. “It should make a U-turn on Hinkley Point.”

On the anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster Rupert Wingfield-Hayes asks whether the enforcement of exclusion zone around the site, which has been declared off limits for the foreseeable future, is doing more harm than the danger of radiation.

A new study says it can explain a mysterious plateau in rising global methane emissions between 1999 and 2006. Researchers reconstructed the global history of methane sources over the past 35 years from ice cores and station data. The results suggests the plateau started as a result of reduced methane emissions from industrial uses – such as burning fossil fuels – as well as a potential increase in natural methane sinks. The plateau ended because of increases in methane emissions from land, the researchers say, likely to be from agriculture.

Decreases in CO2 levels in the atmosphere 34 million years ago triggered the formation of Antarctica’s huge ice sheet, a new study says. Researchers analysed a core drilled from the seabed just off the coast of Antarctica. The results suggest a small ice sheet formed when CO2 levels fell below 750 parts per million (ppm), which then grew to a large, stable ice sheet when CO2 dropped under 600ppm a million years later. The results shed light on the relationship between ice sheets and CO2, the researchers say, and give new insight into what to expect from climate change.