There is widespread coverage of the news that Donald Trump has signed multiple executive orders aimed at expanding the mining and burning of coal. The New York Times reports: “One order directs federal agencies to repeal any regulations that ‘discriminate’ against coal production, to open new federal lands for coal mining and to explore whether coal-burning power plants could serve new AI data centres. Trump also said he would waive certain air-pollution restrictions adopted by the Biden administration for dozens of coal plants that were at risk of closing down.” In another move that “could face legal challenges”, Trump directed the Energy Department to look into using emergency powers to prevent unprofitable coal plants from closing, under the guise of averting power outages, the newspaper says. It continues: “Flanked by dozens of miners in white hard hats at the White House, Trump said he was also instructing the Justice Department to identify and fight state and local climate policies that were ‘putting our coal miners out of business’.” According to the newspaper, he told the gathering: “Beautiful clean coal. Never use the word ‘coal’ unless you put ‘beautiful, clean’ before it.” The Guardian reports that energy experts say “any bump for coal under Trump is likely to be temporary because natural gas is cheaper and there is a durable market for renewable energy such as wind and solar power no matter who holds the White House”. It adds that “environmental groups were scathing about the orders, pointing out that coal is in steep decline in the US compared with the increasingly cheap option of renewable energy”. The Washington Post reports that the move builds on recent efforts from Trump to boost coal, continuing: “The Environmental Protection Agency last month began the process of dismantling restrictions on coal plants’ carbon emissions, mercury pollution and wastewater runoff. The Interior Department approved an expansion of a Montana coal mine, and the Bureau of Land Management is considering an ‘emergency’ lease to mine coal in North Dakota.” Sky News looks at the “good, the bad and the ugly” in Trump’s latest coal plans. There is further coverage in Bloomberg, Politico, Axios, CBS News and NBC News.

In other Trump news, Reuters reports that the president issued an executive order on Tuesday that aims to block the enforcement of state laws passed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and combat climate change. A separate Reuters story says Trump has ended $4m in climate research grants to Princeton University. Time magazine reports on the “biggest clean energy impacts” from Trump’s tariffs. The New York Times reports on how Trump’s tariffs war could harm his quest to “drill, baby, drill”. Reuters reports on how energy data provider Wood MacKenzie has cut its five-year US wind energy outlook by 40% following Trump’s policies. The Guardian says that Trump is to reportedly cut a grant for a US steel project in JD Vance’s hometown. The New York Times says oil executives are privately “worried” about Trump’s policies. Elsewhere, Reuters reports that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday will launch a nearly two-week tour of three Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia, “marking his first visit as a US official to the de facto leader of the OPEC oil producer group”.

European policymakers are “increasingly panicked” over the possibility of a new wave of “cheap” Chinese imports flooding the bloc’s market following the imposition of the Trump administration’s tariffs, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports. The news outlet quotes Laurent Saint-Martin, France’s trade minister, saying: “We need to rebalance [EU-China] trade relations…in line with our industry, our economic security and low-carbon agendas.” It comes as the Times reports that the US announced new 104% tariffs on Chinese goods on Tuesday evening. Fearing that US tariffs could “redirect trade flows to Europe”, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has told Chinese premier Li Qiang that China must address the “risks of trade diversion” caused by the tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reports. SCMP also says the US tariffs could “pave the way” for a growth in “clean-energy partnerships” in Asia, with China “leading the way”. Financial news outlet Caixin reports that Southeast Asia’s solar industry, a key part of “China’s overseas solar production chain”, has seen solar-cell production “grind to a halt” due to US tariffs. Business news outlet Jiemian reports that China’s solar sector is “psychologically prepared” for the new tariffs by the US, given long-standing tariffs on Chinese solar products. US tariffs on Chinese products “will not do much damage” to China’s automakers, which have “virtually no presence in the US market”, business news outlet Yicai reports, adding that China only exported 1.8% of its total automotive exports to the US in 2024. Outlook Weekly, an outlet run by state news agency Xinhua, says China’s new energy-storage sector faces major challenges in its overseas expansion, including “new global trade barriers”, “intensified competition” and “lagging industrial standards”. 

Meanwhile, in other China news, industry news outlet BJX News reports that China Southern Power Grid, which covers five of China’s provinces, has released a draft plan proposing to approve “full participation” of centralised and distributed clean-energy sources in the spot market. A separate BJX News report says China has issued an “implementation plan” for “upgrading” next-generation, coal-power sources, reiterating that coal power needs to play a “guarantee role” in China’s energy system. Xinhua reports that Chinese researchers have achieved a breakthrough in “solar-driven hydrogen production”, increasing efficiency 15-fold. 84% of China’s top 500 private enterprises have “taken measures to promote green and low-carbon transformation” in 2024, another Xinhua article says.

Elsewhere, SCMP reports that Gulf countries are “deepening” renewable energy cooperation with China, which could “reshape global energy politics”. Finally, Dialogue Earth explores “concerns” around the “growing dominance” of Chinese state-owned enterprises in Peru’s electricity system.

The Independent reports that nearly 20 cities across India recorded “scorching temperatures” over 40C last weekend, “weeks ahead of the peak summer season”. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned that heatwave conditions will continue across northern, eastern, central and western India this week, it adds, with forecasters linking the “unusually early surge” in temperatures to “slower winds and clearer skies, which allow more solar radiation to heat the surface”. Yesterday, Barmer in Rajasthan​​ recorded a maximum temperature of 46.4C – over 7C above normal, according to the IMD – making it “the hottest place in the country”, India Today reports. Temperatures in Delhi are “expected to soar to 42C” by Thursday, Business Standard reports. The IMD has issued a yellow alert for the national capital that has seen back-to-back 40C days starting Monday, it adds. While heatwaves “usually start occurring in northern India from the end of April…we are seeing that their occurrence has recently been exacerbated by climate change,” said Mahesh Palawat of private forecaster Skymet, speaking to BBC News. He continues: “We go straight from winter to summer; the spring season in northern India is shrinking.”

Meanwhile, the Hindustan Times reports that major hospitals in Mumbai are seeing a “steep rise – up to 25% compared to [2024] – in cases of heat-related illness and viral infection”. The coastal megacity has seen a “clear rise in heat emergencies” and “actual heatstroke cases, which were once rare in Mumbai” over the past few years, says Dr Sandeep Gore, director of emergency medicine at Fortis Hospital, quoted in the newspaper. Gore adds: “Climate change is no longer a slow-moving crisis: it’s a health emergency now.” Eco-Business reports that “heat-related casualties are set to become one of the administration’s most pressing challenges in the coming months”, with estimates suggesting that over 50% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is “generated by workers in heat-exposed conditions, with limited or non-existent safety nets.” An anonymous senior government official tells the outlet that the union government “understand[s] the impact of climate change and extreme heat is brutal and needs to be addressed”, but “pointed to India’s decentralised governance as a constraint”, adding that “we could only offer guidelines at this stage”. Heat insurance “could enable daily-wage workers to forgo work on dangerously hot days”, says climate scientist Joy Merwin Monteiro, speaking to Down to Earth, adding that it is “crucial to move beyond the sole focus on wet bulb temperatures and integrate insights from health and physiology into discussions on climate change and human survivability”. Nikkei Asia looks at how early summers impact small businesses in the country. Separately, another Down to Earth interview – this time with Bhargav Krishna, the environmental governance lead at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative – examines a “double-edged environmental crisis” facing the country: reducing air pollution while managing heat risks. 

In energy news, Business Standard reports that nearly 60% of India’s new coal plans –  accounting for a third of the world’s coal-power capacity development – are “backed by state-owned entities (SOEs) using public funds”. At the same time, the Hindu reports on a new Ember report [also covered by Carbon Brief] stating that India “became the world’s third-largest producer of electricity from wind and solar energy in 2024, overtaking Germany”. 

Countries gathered at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London this week “look set to agree that, from 2027, the owners or operators of ships that fail to meet targets to reduce emissions from their fuel should be penalised financially”, Climate Home News reports. It explains: “Under a compromise proposal put forward by the chair of the talks, shipowners who fail to meet the targets for cleaner fuels will have to make up the difference through a combination of payments to those who have met the targets and money paid into a green fund administered by the IMO. But, while all major country-negotiating blocks are engaging with this proposal, they remain divided on what these targets should be – and on how steep the penalty should be for failing to meet them.” The Financial Times reports on division at the IMO talks, saying: “Mitsui OSK Lines, the world’s second-largest shipowner, has struck back against calls by its rival AP Møller-Maersk to place a higher regulatory cost on the use of liquefied natural gas to power ships than zero-carbon fuels.” CNBC News has further coverage of the talks.

The UK government is considering nationalising British Steel “as fears grow among ministers that the company’s blast furnaces in Scunthorpe could run out of raw materials within days”, BBC News reports. The broadcaster says chancellor Rachel Reeves has sought to reassure workers at the Lincolnshire plant that the government would consider nationalisation if necessary and prime minister Keir Starmer also told a liaison committee meeting that he is “absolutely committed” to ensuring UK steelmaking continues. The government has been in terse talks with the firm’s Chinese owner Jingye, who rejected an offer of £500m of support to partly fund a switch from blast furnaces to lower-emission electric arc furnaces, BBC News says. It continues: “Senior figures in Whitehall are concerned negotiations are reaching a crunch point this week, as the prospect of a lack of raw materials for the blast furnaces in the coming days – leading them to be turned off – would make the site’s existing vulnerability even more perilous.” The Financial Times reports that “UK officials are examining options to purchase the coking coal and iron materials needed to keep the furnaces working in the short term because British Steel had not as yet ordered them”. The Guardian says nationalisation plans were first floated in December, but “discussions have taken fresh urgency” following US tariffs on steel imports.

In other UK news, the Press Association reports that more than 50 firefighters are tackling a “significant” wildfire in Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains. BBC News says ships have been forced to use their fog lights to navigate through smoke from the wildfires. Bloomberg has more information on why the UK government weakened electric vehicle selling rules. The Independent carries views from readers on the 2030 petrol car sales ban. BBC News says the UK government is investigating a fast-growing “green fuel” called HVO diesel amid “claims of significant fraud”. BusinessGreen covers a report finding half of UK industrial emissions risk being “overlooked” by current net-zero policies.

The New York Times highlights its new project, launched last month, which “aims to recognise local climate and environmental solutions in all 50 US states”. The newspaper interviews one of its climate journalists Cara Buckley, “who this year began working with Catrin Einhorn, another reporter on the Climate desk, to see the project through”. The project “highlights climate and environmental solutions in five states, including a 100-acre nature preserve in Hawaii, a car-free neighborhood in Arizona and geothermal energy that is helping to power Idaho’s capital”. In the interview, Buckley discusses the “importance of positive climate change stories in the current news cycle and what she finds rewarding about investigating solutions to our warming planet”.

Meanwhile, there is continued hostility towards net-zero policies in the UK’s right-leaning newspapers. The Daily Telegraph has a column by Gordon Hughes, an adviser to a climate-sceptic lobby group, saying that one should “never allow a crisis to go to waste” and “the opportunity offered by president Trump’s ‘tariff shock’ would allow the government to save face while abandoning its net-zero goals”. In the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic broadcaster Andrew Neil says net-zero is a “luxury we can no longer afford”, adding: “The whole farrago of net-zero nonsense should be consigned to the dustbin, the multi-billion pound savings transferred to a proper rearmament programme of scale and substance – with money to spare to bolster British businesses that need help to weather Trump’s tariff tsunami.” In the Daily Express, Tim Newark, another climate-sceptic commentator, argues that the “fantasy of Ed Miliband’s net-zero by 2050 must be dismantled”.

A multi-country study links fine particulate matter (PM2.5) particles caused by wildfire smoke to increased hospitalisation risks for a range of respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acute respiratory infection, influenza and pneumonia. The research looks at the short-term effects of “wildfire-specific PM2.5” on respiratory hospitalisations over 2000-19 in 1,052 communities in Australia, Brazil, China, Chile, New Zealand, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan. The researchers say the “substantial contribution” of wildfire-specific PM2.5 to respiratory hospitalisations calls for “continued [climate] mitigation and adaptation efforts” as wildfires become more frequent and severe.