US president Joe Biden’s administration has announced first-of-its-kind government guidelines for the voluntary carbon market, where businesses can buy credits from carbon-cutting schemes to claim they have cut their own emissions, the New York Times reports. The newspaper says that “companies and individuals spent $1.7bn last year voluntarily buying carbon offsets”, but that “a growing number of studies and reports have found that many carbon offsets simply don’t work”. It continues: “The Biden administration is now weighing in on this debate, saying that offsets can sometimes be an important tool for helping businesses and others reduce their emissions, as long as there are guardrails in place. The new federal guidelines are an attempt to define ‘high-integrity’ offsets as those that deliver real and quantifiable emissions reductions that wouldn’t have otherwise taken place.” Reuters says that the “joint statement of policy and principles to guide participation in voluntary carbon markets” was announced by the heads of the treasury, energy and agriculture departments as well as Biden’s top climate and economic advisers. The Financial Times says US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen stressed that companies should prioritise cutting their own emissions and not rely solely on carbon offsets when announcing the new rules. According to the FT, she said: “Corporate buyers should prioritise reducing their own emissions, particularly through transition planning, adopting net-zero targets, and transparently reporting on progress. Participation in [voluntary carbon markets] should complement these efforts.” Axios has a brief explainer on the new rules. Elsewhere, the Times reports that a project developer spearheaded by a former UK soldier called “Carbon Done Right” is “facing questions over African land rights”. [See Carbon Brief’s in-depth series on the current problems facing carbon offsetting.]

In other US news, the Guardian reports on a poll finding that the majority of US voters support climate litigation against large oil companies.

At least 25 people were killed yesterday across four states in India’s north-east in “rain-related incidents and landslides” as cyclonic storm Remal made landfall on Sunday night, Scroll reports. In the state of Mizoram, 11 people were killed as a stone quarry collapsed in a landslide, the state’s chief minister telling Scroll that “10 more persons are feared to be trapped under debris or swept away by flood water” and more than 100 families have been forced to evacuate their homes due to flooding. Many parts of Imphal, the state capital of Manipur, have been flooded and water levels in three major rivers are “still rising”, Imphal Free Press reports. Down to Earth reports that the Sundarbans delta ecosystem was “largely saved” this time but that West Bengal’s “political leaders, cutting across party lines, took a pause from campaigning for the ongoing election and swept into relief action, perhaps trying to milk political dividends” from the storm. According to Reuters, West Bengal authorities “were working to restore electricity in the worst-affected areas, after Remal stripped power lines and uprooted trees”.

Remal, “which had measured winds of over 70 miles per hour [113 kilometres per hour], left a trail of destruction” in Bangladesh and India, “hit[ting] after weeks of intense heat in the region”, the New York Times reports. In Bangladesh, “the storm killed 13 people and damaged or destroyed more than 35,000 homes across the coastal areas, affecting about 3.5 million people”, state officials told the paper. A UNICEF spokesperson quoted in the story estimates that 8.4 million people, including 3.2 million children are “at high health, nutrition, sanitation and safety risks” in the storm’s aftermath. “We can sympathise with the cyclone victims, but are we able to put ourselves in their shoes?” asks an opinion piece in Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper.

While India’s east battles floods, northern and western states still face heatwave conditions, with the Hindustan Times reporting that Churu in western Rajasthan recorded a maximum temperature of 50.5C on Tuesday. “Despite these unusually long heatwave spells, there is no record of heat deaths for this year”, said another Hindustan Times story. Nature covers a study by the Indian Institute of Technology that finds that “Indian cities are warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the country, with urbanisation alone responsible for 60% of the trend”. Separately, Bloomberg reports that “[s]oaring temperatures are raising the stakes for India’s farmers”, with banana cultivators telling the outlet “they’re losing a greater number of crops from extreme weather”.

“Strong storms with damaging winds and baseball-sized hail” struck Texas yesterday, leaving one person dead and about 1m businesses and homes without power, Le Monde reports. It says: “Widespread outages were reported across a wide swath of storm-weary Texas, where an oppressive, early-season heatwave added to the misery. Voters in the state’s runoff elections found dozens of polling places without power. Dallas County said it would keep polls open two hours later because of the outages Tuesday.” The article notes that “the storms come as climate change contributes in general to the severity of storms around the world”. The Los Angeles Times reports that at least 25 people have been killed in extreme weather over the Memorial Day weekend in the US. The Associated Press reports on the first-ever draft of Texas’s flood plan, which shows that more than five million people, or one in six in the state, live or work in an area susceptible to flooding. 

In other extreme weather news, Reuters reports that Mexico’s electricity demand has hit a new record amid scorching heat in the country. A second Reuters story says that recent floods in southern Brazil have left children without school classrooms for a month.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has warned against an excess of investment into the new energy sector and “promised China would be a place for fair competition”, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports. The outlet adds that Xi said that the support for the “new three” industry – new energy vehicles (NEV), lithium-ion batteries and solar panels – must be “adapted” to local conditions and that “the new energy industry should not be the sole focus”. State broadcaster CCTV reports that the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China also held a meeting with Xi to discuss financial risks while “coordinately promot[ing] ecological environment protection and green and low-carbon development” in central China. The International Energy Net publishes a notice issued by the National Energy Administration (NEA) about China’s coal development, requesting the large coal mines in the country to “accelerate their intelligent transformation” by the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) quotes Huang Yiping, a member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China, saying that “since every country needs to make the green transition”, China can not only “help them achieve the goal, but also elevate China’s global leadership and influence in green development”. A Bloomberg newsletter argues that with trade tensions getting worse, the G7 “has now swung behind a new buzzword to wield in its confrontation with China: ‘Overcapacity’”. The New York Times publishes an analysis saying that the west is trying “frantically” to catch up with China’s industrial dominance, achieved by its industrial policy. SCMP and state news agency Xinhua report that China, Japan and South Korea have released a joint statement to “foster a free, open, non-discriminatory, transparent, inclusive and predictable trade and investment environment” globally. 

Separately, Bloomberg publishes an editorial arguing that the US tariffs on NEVs show that the Biden administration is “confused” in choosing their top priority between “fighting climate change” and “protecting US producers from foreign competition”. The New York Times carries an article saying that even though Biden wants more of America’s vehicles to “run on electricity, not gas”, he doesn’t want China to be the “new monopoly” in the sector. Finally, Alfredo Pascual, the Philippines’ trade and industry secretary, says in an interview with the Financial Times that the US and its allies should “boost trade and investment” in the country to ensure its “economic security” amid “escalating tensions” between Manila and Beijing that “spark fears of a wider economic fallout”.

The Press Association reports on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) finding that a lack of progress on insulating UK homes is costing bill payers £3.2bn a year. The research classified an average home as having an EPC rating of “D” and says upgrading to “C” would have saved the bill payer £200 a year, according to PA. It adds that the savings would have been almost £400 for homes with an EPC rating of ‘E’ and £550 for EPC ‘F’. The newswire continues: “Last year, the government scrapped its target that all privately rented homes should be rated EPC ‘C’ or above by 2025, in an overhaul of its net-zero pledges. Upgrading these homes alone would save those households £1.4bn a year under the new prices, the ECIU said.”

Elsewhere, the Times reports that a windfarm backed by Scottish energy company SSE has been issued a record fine for overcharging consumers. “Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (Bowl) has agreed to pay £33.1m in redress after [regulator] Ofgem found that it had charged ‘excessive prices’ to lower its output,” the newspaper says. Separately, the Times reports comments from Scotland’s net-zero secretary Mairi McAllan claiming that the climate targets dropped by the Scottish government earlier this year were “always beyond what was possible”. [A recent Climate Change Committee report said that Scotland’s dropped target was getting increasingly difficult to meet because of a lack of progress, but not that it had become impossible to meet.] The Daily Telegraph reports that sites in Teeside and Birmingham are being considered by a US developer for building mini-nuclear reactors. Finally, both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph report on comments from former National Farmers’ Union head Minette Batters warning against the spread of solar on UK farmland. [See Carbon Brief’s factcheck noting that ground-mounted solar currently covers just 0.1% of UK land.]

Sales of SUVs reached a record high last year, accounting for half of all new cars globally, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) data reported on by the Guardian. The newspaper says: “Rising emissions from SUVs in 2023 made up 20% of the global increase in CO2, making the vehicles a major cause of the intensifying climate crisis. If SUVs were a country, the IEA said, they would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter of CO2, ahead of the national emissions of both Japan and Germany.”

The Philippines will lead 19 other countries to establish a group to raise funds for helping the nations most vulnerable to climate change to become more resilient, according to a Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) announcement covered by Reuters. Philippines finance secretary Cesar Purisima will chair the inaugural meeting of the Vulnerable 20, or “V20”, group of finance ministers in Lima, Peru in October, ahead of the annual gatherings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reuters says.

Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, writes that the “Biden administration’s new plan to overhaul the voluntary carbon market is an important step forward”. He says: “Right now, the market for credits is opaque and riddled with inefficiency. Buyers can’t be sure which credits are credible, projects often don’t deliver what they promise and sellers can’t be held accountable. This lack of transparency also opens the door for greenwashing, where companies claim to be making a much bigger difference than they are, which fuels public scepticism about the potential for private-sector leadership. As a result, the market for carbon credits is much smaller – and far less productive – than it should be…For markets to work well, they must be transparent, trusted and standardised – three qualities that have largely eluded the market for carbon credits. But change is coming.” [See Carbon Brief’s in-depth series on the current problems with carbon offsetting.]

Financial Times columnist Pilitia Clark examines whether prime minister Rishi Sunak’s rollback of net-zero measures will harm his prospects in the July general election. She says: “When Steve Akehurst, a polling analyst, showed voters a news story about Sunak’s rollback, older Tory supporters’ views of the party barely moved but younger graduates were actively repelled. The Conservatives went on to lose more by-elections, and in the first major electoral test since the seven bins speech, the party suffered serious losses in local elections this month. Tellingly, one prominent Tory who held on, Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, is a big supporter of green investment.”

Elsewhere, the Guardian publishes an editorial based on a House of Commons public accounts committee report outlining failures in policies to manage the UK railways. It reads: “Perhaps most damagingly of all, the report suggests that cost-cutting ordered by Whitehall risks shrinking industry revenue by making rail travel less attractive. This would be boneheaded, myopic economics at the best of times, fuelling a depressing spiral of decline. In an era when investment in green public transport of all kinds is an environmental priority, it is also a deeply irresponsible approach to take.” An editorial in the Times is critical of a successful effort from activists to convince the literary event Hay Festival to drop one of its sponsors over their ties to fossil fuels and the Israeli military. In addition, the Daily Telegraph continues its near-constant stream of articles criticising electric vehicles with a column titled: “Electric cars are about to get a lot more expensive.” The newspaper also has an editorial on the impact of recent heavy rainfall on crops and how “the most worrying prospect for some seems to be the rising price of biscuits”. It says: “Today is National Biscuit Day, heaven help us. But we should be able to manage to do a little more, as the next shower passes, than be our own Marie Antoinettes declaring: ‘Let us eat biscuits’.”

New research explores how switching between similar food and beverage products could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Using consumer data linked to 23,550 products consumed at home and their GHG emissions, the researchers assess the impacts of switching products “within very similar (for example, higher-GHG white breads switched for lower-GHG white breads) and less similar categories (for example, higher-GHG garlic breads to lower-GHG white breads)”. They find that switching “very similar” products “could reduce total emissions by 26%”, while switching “less similar” products could lead to a 71% reduction. An accompanying news and views article says the research “offers policymakers a potential metric for translating dietary pattern-level evidence into food product-level actions”.