The US government is planning what the New York Times calls some of the most stringent limits on car emissions in the world, in a move it says is designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67% of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032. According to “two people familiar with the matter”, the proposal would be intended to ensure that electric cars represent between 54 and 60% of all new cars sold in the United States by 2030, with that figure rising to 64 to 67% of new car sales by 2032, the paper explains. Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is expected to announce the proposed limits on Wednesday, the paper says, noting that they would represent “a quantum leap for the US – where just 5.8% of vehicles sold last year were all-electric – and would exceed President Biden’s earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold in the country by 2030”. The regulation, which would go through a public consultation period and could be altered by the government before becoming final, is “sure to be met with legal challenges”, the paper says, adding: “It could also become an issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, as a future administration could undo or weaken it.” The Washington Post explains that the EPA rules would limit the emissions each car manufacturer’s fleet of sold vehicles will produce, adding: “So while the rule changes wouldn’t order or require auto companies to sell a certain number of electric vehicles, it would set emissions limits so tightly the only way to comply would be to sell large percentages of EVs.” The newspaper notes that “the most aggressive options in the EPA’s proposal are so stringent that many automakers, especially those slowest to adopt electric cars and trucks, will see it as more aggressive than what they can realistically meet”. Bloomberg, Axios and the Hill all pick up the story.

Elsewhere in the US, Axios reports that plans by US retail giant Walmart to “dramatically expand” its EV fast-charger network is “a big deal for the country’s quickly developing car-charging infrastructure”. Walmart plans to install EV fast-chargers at thousands of its outlets across the US by 2030, the story says, adding that “90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart”. Axios also reports that a new model being introduced in North America by South Korean manufacturer Kia this week shows that “family SUVs are finally going electric”. And Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap News, writes in the New York Times that the protectionism in recent climate legislation – such as subsidies for EVs assembled in the US – “is the opposite of how experts have historically imagined the battle against climate change”. However, he adds, “there’s now reason to think that certain kinds of competition – not cooperation – might be inherent to solving the climate problem itself: that all else being equal, fighting climate change might lead to more protectionism, more economic tension, more trade wars”.

In other EV news, Reuters reports that Toyota – the world’s largest carmaker – is looking to “overhaul” EV strategy as a new chief executive takes charge. A second Reuters article says the firm is “aiming for steep growth in a market where it has long been lapped by rivals”. This will include launching 10 new battery-powered models and targeting sales of 1.5m EVs a year by 2026, the newswire says. The Times quotes Koji Sato, the new CEO, who says: “We must first do what we can and start by electrifying.” The Times also reports that UK car dealers are “braced for an influx of as many as 25 Chinese-built electric car brands to shake up the British retail market from next year”. The Observer reports on the UK firms “rac[ing] to get in on electric car battery recycling act”. And the Daily Telegraph reports that the UK’s multi-storey car parks “could be at risk of collapse as heavier electric vehicles put pressure on ageing infrastructure”.

Sultan Al Jaber, the president-designate of the COP28 summit, says that the world needs a “business mindset” to tackle climate change, reports the Guardian in an “exclusive” interview. Al Jaber tells the paper that “we need a major course correction and a massive effort to reignite progress. This cannot be done by governments alone.” He continues: “The scale of the problem requires everyone working in solidarity. We need partnerships, not polarisation, and we need to approach this with a clear-eyed rationale and executable plan of action…COP28 is committed to building on the progress made at COP26 and COP27 to inject a business mindset, concrete KPIs [key performance indicators, a cornerstone of most commercial strategies] and an ambitious action-oriented agenda.” As chief executive of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) national oil company Adnoc, Al Jaber is a “deeply controversial choice to chair these crucial talks”, the newspaper says. However, “Al Jaber said no one should prejudge his presidency, as he was committed to safeguarding the 1.5C limit and ensuring that all countries, and the private sector, would act to achieve the massive emissions cuts necessary”, the article says. Al Jaber says that UAE’s progress at diversifying beyond oil “would enable him to motivate other oil-producing countries to come up with similar plans”, the paper notes. He explains: “The UAE intends to build this same business case for climate action at COP28…We know we need to engage the private sector fully and unlock the trillions of dollars that are needed. This requires a business plan that outlines key deliverables with concrete KPIs; it requires reliable and sufficient capital, and it requires coordinated collective action.” Al Jaber also mentions the need to invest in hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS). He tells the paper: “I want to make sure that COP28 becomes a rallying point for partnerships across every region to commercialise hydrogen production, transportation and industrial use.” On CCS, he says: “The IPCC has been saying since 2016 that carbon capture is an essential tool for keeping temperature rises in check. Yet there is only 44m tonnes of carbon captured annually. We need to multiply that amount by 30. This is a huge undertaking that is currently just not affordable. We need progressive, smart government regulation and policies to incentivise private investment on an industrial scale.” The Times reports on the interview.

The Group of Seven (G7) nations are “butting heads” over the timeline for phasing out coal-fired power ahead of next weekend’s summit of energy and environmental ministers, reports Bloomberg. The outlet says it has seen “draft communique documents circulated before negotiations resume [on] Tuesday”, which “show the European Union, the US and Japan expressed reservations about a UK proposal to set a 2030 deadline for phasing out unabated domestic coal power generation”. The language, the outlets says, which won France’s backing, also would have recognised the need to “cancel the pipeline of new global coal power generation projects”, and therefore have the G7 countries committing to end construction of new domestic coal-fired power plants and work with international partners to end similar efforts globally. The publication says that Germany “offered alternative language that would have emphasised the goal of phasing out domestic unabated coal power generation ‘ideally by 2030’ or ‘in the 2030s’”, while hosts Japan has “proposed reaffirming the commitment in last year’s G7 leaders’ statement ‘to achieving a fully or predominantly decarbonised power sector by 2035’”. Negotiators are also “still sparring over Japan’s push for language endorsing the use of hydrogen and ammonia produced from it as a power source”, the article says: “Several countries have pushed to qualify that support, saying its use must be consistent with other climate and decarbonisation goals and only occur when associated nitrogen oxide pollution is squelched.” The draft statement also says ministers would agree that new upstream investments in gas were needed, because of the energy fallout from Russia’s invasion, Reuters reports. It quotes the draft statement saying: “In this context, in this particular contingency, we recognise the need for necessary upstream investments in LNG [liquefied natural gas] and natural gas in line with our climate objectives and commitments.” The newswire adds that “the draft is still being negotiated by the G7 countries, and may change significantly before it is adopted”.

China and France have issued a joint statement after French president Emmanuel Macron’s widely-reported trip to China. The joint statement says “climate, biodiversity and combating land degradation are priorities for both China and France”, China’s state media CGTN reports. The two countries pledge to uphold promises made in a previous joint statement – the Beijing call for biodiversity conservation and climate change issued in November 2019 – and “maintain a high-level ambition within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, CGTN adds. Just before meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Macron said on Twitter that he and Xi would talk about “businesses, the climate and biodiversity, and food security”, CNBC reports. Euronews said Macron promised ahead of the meeting to push for “working in partnership” with China on climate. It adds that he said that France is planning to host a worldwide summit on ocean protection in 2025 and that China should be involved. China’s state media Xinhua reports that Xi stated both sides will deepen cooperation in aviation, aerospace, civil nuclear energy, and foster “new growth” in cooperation in “renewable development, technological innovation, including the establishment of a ‘carbon neutrality centre’ and strengthening joint personnel training”. 

Meanwhile, three of China’s state-owned energy giants plan to invest a “combined 100bn yuan ($14.5bn) or more” in renewable energy “through 2025”, reports Nikkei Asia, adding that this move will “diversify their business” as the Chinese government aims for carbon neutrality by 2060. The investments will be directed to projects of “setting up more hydrogen stations for fuel cell vehicles”, offshore wind, solar power and other renewable energy sources, the Tokyo-based outlet adds. Elsewhere, Chinese website cenews.com quotes an official from the tax department last Thursday, saying that “in the first quarter of this year, the sales revenue of the ecological protection and environmental governance industry increased by 18% compared to the same period last year.” Another article published by the website, citing the original report from CCTV, writes that a satellite launched by China two years ago was “officially put into use” on Thursday. Citing a Chinese official, it adds that currently, this satellite is “capable of monitoring carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, methane, ozone, and particulate matter, and the accuracy of its measurements has also been greatly improved”. 

Finally, the Diplomat carries a comment piece by Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, saying that “Russian crude oil exports to China are largely seaborne and not as important as many think”. 

The UK Treasury spent almost half a million pounds on an unused emergency scheme for energy traders launched by short-lived prime minister Liz Truss, the Guardian reports. It continues: “The energy markets financing scheme (EMFS) was devised by the Treasury and the Bank of England as a £40bn government-guaranteed backstop fund to provide stability for energy and financial markets. The scheme was designed to offer energy traders liquidity to deal with massive margin calls – demands from brokers to deposit further cash or securities to cover possible losses – but was shut in January as a sharp fall in wholesale gas prices earlier this year eased pressure on energy firms.” A freedom of information request by the paper reveals the Treasury spent £465,000 on “external technical consultants to support the creation of the EMFS”. The paper adds: “[The Treasury] said that 11 commercial banks and 20 energy firms were invited to technical video calls with the Treasury relating to the scheme. Energy firms would have applied jointly with a bank but no applications were made during a window from October to late January.” In response, the Treasury said that “due to improvements in market conditions since the launch of the scheme, energy firms were able to access the necessary lines of credit from commercial lenders without the need for the government-backed guarantee”.

Separately, the Guardian reports in an exclusive on new analyses showing that the government’s home insulation scheme “would take 190 years to upgrade the energy efficiency of the UK’s draughty housing stock, and 300 years to meet the government’s own targets to reduce fuel poverty”. The paper explains: “The UK Business Council for Sustainable Development has calculated that the pace of the [Great British Insulation Scheme], announced as part of a wide-ranging energy security strategy last week, would take almost 200 years to reach the homes in need of upgrades. The scheme would take another 100 years to meet the government’s own targets for improving the home energy efficiency of households living in fuel poverty in England alone, according to fuel poverty charity National Energy Action.” A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero tells the paper that “strong progress is being made to insulate homes” and that the government does “not recognise this analysis”.

Meanwhile, the Guardian also reports that “more than 150 pubs closed for good in England and Wales during the first three months of this year as soaring energy bills and other costs pushed many operators over the edge”. It says: “Analysis of official government data by the commercial property firm Altus Group found that 51 pubs were lost each month in the first quarter of 2023 – almost two a day…[T]he fear is that the rate of closures will only accelerate, in part because the government’s energy support package has been hugely scaled back from the start of this month.” The Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Mail all have the story.

New research suggests that “today’s home run hitters” are seeing their baseball shots “turbocharged” by a warmer climate, reports the Guardian. The widely covered study uses data from 100,000 Major League Baseball games and 220,000 individually hit balls to show that higher temperatures increase the number of balls hit out of the park, the paper says. It quotes study author Justin Mankin, who explains that “when you have warmer temperatures you have lower air density, and when you have lower air density you have less drag on a flying object, whether that’s a baseball or an aeroplane”. Mankin and his colleagues found that between 2010 and 2019, global warming led on average to an extra 58 home runs a year. As 6,776 home runs were hit in the record-setting 2019 season, “the effect is modest”, the paper says, “but each 1C of future warming is associated with about 95 more home runs a season”. The study is covered by many US outlets, including the Associated Press, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Grist, CNN and Forbes. Two of the study authors have written for the Conversation, while the Times and Daily Telegraph give a more UK-centric perspective, focusing on the impact on cricket and golf, respectively.

The Daily Telegraph’s world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the “existential threat” to Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) group “comes from China, not from net-zero or from green deals in the west”. Describing China’s “green leap forward” as “a nightmare for Big Oil”, Evans-Pritchard says: “The consensus forecast until recently was that EV penetration would reach 40% of Chinese sales by 2030. That threshold could be crossed as soon as this year.” He says the moves China is making are “compelling America and Europe to respond in kind, causing a step-change in the arms race for clean-tech ascendancy”. Evans-Pritchard concludes: “Personally, I had assumed that oil would enjoy one last hurrah in the early 2020s as a decade of under-investment drives prices to $150 or $200. But this does not seem so inevitable any more. The rallies keep fading. The events of the last week suggest that the process of oil displacement is more advanced than we had assumed. Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the petrostates have already entered the first stage of terminal run-off.”

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Financial Times comments on the effectiveness of a price cap levied against Russian oil sales over the past four months. “There is nervousness in Washington that a lower cap would prod Russia to realise its threat of cutting exports,” the FT says. It adds: “So far, the objective of inflicting more pain on Russia than on the west, through the caps, appears to be working. But if western leaders want to continue squeezing Putin, they have to recognise that some risks are unavoidable.” 

In the Financial Times, former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos writes that World Bank and IMF governors meeting in Washington this week have “a historic opportunity to address the triple crises of climate, debt and poverty”. He continues: “An annual $1tn of external finance would help developing countries protect their people from growing climate impacts, transition their economies and restore nature. But a 2009 pledge of $100bn a year has still not been met.” With enough additional money, Santos writes: “[I]t’s easier to resolve the supposed trade-offs of climate versus development, and national priorities versus global public goods. It is not a choice of a healthy economy or a healthy planet.”

In a comment for Climate Home News, reporter Joe Lo looks at “what’s at stake for climate at the World Bank’s spring meeting”. The “climate movement” has “shifted its focus toward the World Bank and the tens of billions of dollars it controls”, Lo writes. Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley “wants the bank to take the lead in mobilising the over $1tn a year developing countries will need by 2030 to meet their climate investment needs”, he continues, adding that the World Bank has, in response to this pressure, drawn up an “evolution roadmap” with a new mission to “emphasise the importance of sustainability and resilience to reflect more clearly that our mission includes global public goods, such as climate change”. Lo concludes that the “only real change” the bank has proposed so far is “to lower the equity-to-loan ratio of its biggest subsidiary bank from 20% to 19%”.

In related news analysis, the New York Times says the World Bank “appears to be on the brink of significant change”. It runs under the headline: “The World Bank is getting a new chief. Will he pivot toward climate action?”

In the Daily Telegraph, business columnist Andrew Orlowski writes one of several articles critical of the UK’s net-zero target. He complains of the “green energy gravy train” and says: “the case for maintaining these painful green programmes is vanishing before us” because the UK “cannot win” the race for clean technology against the US Inflation Reduction Act. Also in the Daily Telelgraph, climate sceptic Conservative peer and columnist David Frost refers to home insulation as a solution to the “so-called ‘climate crisis’”. Meanwhile, Daily Telegraph head of personal finance Ben Wilkinson writes that Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) used to gauge home energy use are “wiping thousands off house prices” and “forcing landlords to make expensive upgrades”. Finally, in the Daily Mail, Climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark eulogises the end of traditional house coal, writing: “[T]o catch a whiff of coal on the platform of a heritage railway is to be reminded of the singular substance that made Britain.” He writes: “Climate change forced former supporters of the industry into a rapid about-turn, to the point that some now see coal-mining as a crime against humanity, rather than the beating heart of the working class…A proposed coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumbria, which was granted the go-ahead by the government in December, was bitterly opposed by climate-change protesters, in spite of the fact it will not be producing coal for power stations or open fires, only coking coal for steel-making.”

A new study assesses the compound impact of future climate change and urban densification on renewable energy integration for 18 European cities. The researchers see a “marked change in wind speed and temperature…resulting in a notable increase in both peak and annual energy demand”. As a result, “an additional cost of 20-60% will be needed during the energy transition (without technology innovation in building) to guarantee climate resilience”, the authors say. Energy infrastructure in dense urban areas of southern Europe is “more vulnerable to the compound impact, necessitating flexibility improvements at the design phase when improving renewable penetration levels”, the study says. It adds that “failure to consider extreme climate events will lower power supply reliability by up to 30%”.