Fwd: Daily Briefing: India withdraws COP33 bid | UK approves largest solar farm | China ‘wasting’ renewables

[Loretta Lohman]

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Snapshot New on Carbon Brief • Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis • Cropped: Iran war drives up food prices | Two nature talks conclude | Return of UK’s tallest bird News • India withdraws bid to host COP33 climate talks | Climate Home News • US: Zeldin tells climate sceptics to ‘celebrate vindication’ after repeal of baseline climate rule | Associated Press • UK: Government approves UK's largest solar farm in Lincolnshire | BBC News • Iran struck Saudi Arabia oil pipeline just hours after ceasefire, source says | Reuters • China’s wasting too much renewable power as curtailments rise | Bloomberg • Sheinbaum proposes fracking plan as Mexico seeks to curb its reliance on US gas | Financial Times Comment • NASA flew by the moon, but behind the scenes, its science is a chaotic mess | Dr Kate Marvel, New York Times • Betting on North Sea oil is a gamble with our household bills | Hannah Spencer, Independent Research • New research on biodiversity resilience in tropical forests, methane emissions from small wetlands and climate extremes in the Sahel Other stories • Millions facing hunger and water crisis in Somalia as world focuses on war in Middle East | Independent • More harsh weather in store for Afghanistan after 148 deaths | Reuters • 'Extreme weather is already costing global businesses | Financial Times New on Carbon Brief Iran war analysis: How 60 nations have responded to the global energy crisis Josh Gabbatiss Carbon Brief has drawn on tracking by the International Energy Agency and other sources to assess the global policy response to the energy crisis. Cropped: Iran war drives up food prices | Two nature talks conclude | Return of UK’s tallest bird Daisy Dunne and Yanine Quiroz The online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter, a digest of food, land and nature news from the last fortnight. Sign up for free News India withdraws bid to host COP33 climate talks Joe Lo, Climate Home News The Indian government has “quietly withdrawn” its offer to host the COP33 climate summit in 2028, reports Climate Home News. The outlet adds: “An Indian official informed other nations of the decision on 2 April, saying the offer – first made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2023 – was being withdrawn ‘following a review of its commitments for the year 2028’. No additional explanation has been provided. The Indian government has not publicly announced the decision and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.” It continues: “The decision leaves uncertainty over the host country of COP33, which will follow COP31 in Turkey and COP32 in Ethiopia. While on the campaign trail before his election in 2025, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung said he wanted to host the annual talks and, according to local media, the Korean province of Jeollanam-do has campaigned to host the summit. But an official from the country’s climate ministry told Climate Home News on Wednesday that the national government has not formally expressed an interest in hosting COP33.” Bloomberg, Reuters, the Times of India and the Hindu also cover the story. US: Zeldin tells climate sceptics to ‘celebrate vindication’ after repeal of baseline climate rule Matthew Daly, Associated Press Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, gave the keynote address yesterday at a conference hosted by the Heartland Institute – a “conservative thinktank that rejects mainstream climate science and what it calls ‘climate alarmism’”, reports the Associated Press. According to the newswire, Zeldin “defended his decision” to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, telling delegates they should “celebrate vindication”. Politico adds that Zeldin “was the first EPA chief to attend the annual gathering, which has long been shunned by Democratic and Republican administrations alike for advancing a fringe view that greenhouse gas emissions are beneficial”. Inside Climate News adds that “Zeldin specifically attacked the ranges that scientists used to talk about the likely impacts of climate change”. The Washington Post adds that Zeldin “praised the conservative group for its work in the 2000s to question the predicted impacts of climate change and oppose government action on climate change”. The Guardian says a panel at the conference convened the authors of the “contentious Department of Energy report that was written to back up the repeal of the endangerment finding”. CBS News and the Hill also cover the news. MORE ON US The Associated Press says that March was the hottest on record in the US, with E&E News reporting that it was a “record-smashing first quarter for the American West”. The Seattle Times: “Washington state declares unprecedented fourth drought emergency in a row.” Inside Climate News says the Department of Agriculture has “ditched conservation and climate efforts” and “lost 21% of its workforce in 2025”. The Independent reports that US vice president JD Vance has “criticised the UK government”, saying that Britons pay “too much” for gas and electricity. Bloomberg: “US electric vehicle charging networks were still racing to catch up to demand when the Iran attack and surging gas prices reignited EV interest.” The Associated Press reports that “[California governor] Gavin Newsom is advancing a plan that could funnel hundreds of millions in road dollars to a struggling oil refinery – pitching it as a cleaner jet fuel initiative”. The New York Times reports that a group of liberal candidates, who campaigned as the “clean energy team”, has won control of the board of Arizona’s largest public utility. UK: Government approves UK's largest solar farm in Lincolnshire Stuart Harratt, BBC News The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has approved the UK’s largest solar farm, reports BBC News. According to the broadcaster, the government approved the Springwell Solar Farm in Lincolnshire “despite opposition from residents” who raised concerns about “the loss of farmland, the impact on the landscape and the safety of the lithium-ion batteries”. Bloomberg says the 800-megawatt solar project “is expected to be the country’s largest in generation terms and to power more than 180,000 homes each year”. It adds that the government did not mention a timeline, but notes that “in the UK the schedule for taking a solar project from approval to production can range between four and 12 years”. BusinessGreen, the Independent and Daily Telegraph also cover the news. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that “Britain’s sunny spring weather powered the grid to new solar energy records on two consecutive days this week”. MORE ON UK The Daily Telegraph claims Scottish Labour leader Anas Sawar “has been privately lobbying Ed Miliband”, to approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, while the Times covers Sawar’s calls for the North Sea windfall tax to be scrapped if the ceasefire in Iran drives down energy prices. The New Economics Foundation has suggested that “to cut rising bills all UK households should receive a minimum amount of energy at rates subsidised by the government through North Sea taxes”, according to the Guardian. The i newspaper: “Unreported methane emissions have been detected in the North Sea, suggesting the oil and gas sector could be responsible for more pollution than previously thought.” BusinessGreen says the UK government has revealed new plans to “streamline the planning approval process” for both the Sizewell C nuclear plant and a sustainable aviation fuel plant. The Independent reports that “Britain experienced its hottest day in the first half of April for 80 years on Wednesday as temperatures soared to 26.6C in Kew Gardens”. Iran struck Saudi Arabia oil pipeline just hours after ceasefire, source says Yousef Saba and Maha El Dahan, Reuters A Saudi Arabian oil pipeline – which is currently the country’s only outlet for exporting oil – has been hit in an Iranian attack, reports Reuters. Bloomberg says the pipeline “served as a vital lifeline for getting oil from Saudi Arabia’s vast fields along the Persian Gulf to the port of Yanbu on the western Red Sea coast, effectively bypassing the largely closed Strait of Hormuz”. Separately, the Financial Times says: “Iran said its Lavan oil refinery had also been attacked”. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that oil prices dropped below $95 per barrel yesterday following the ceasefire announcement. However, Bloomberg says the price later “rose toward $97 a barrel” in response to the Strait of Hormuz remaining blocked. The Wall Street Journal reports that prices are “expected to remain in the $90-a-barrel range through the April-June quarter before returning to preconflict levels”, according to economists. The New York Times explains that despite the drop in oil prices, "analysts expect it will take a while for the price at the pump [in the US] to follow”. Similarly, the Daily Telegraph says that petrol prices in the UK “won’t return to normal any time soon”. The New York Times says that “it will take months to get oil and gas flowing out of the Persian Gulf”. It adds: “All told, 10% or more of the world’s oil supply has been turned off. Restarting those operations will require not only safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, but also inspecting pumps, replacing bespoke processing equipment and recalling employees and ships that have scattered across the globe.” The Times reports that damage to some key infrastructure could take weeks to fix, but warns that “some plants could take much longer to rebuild”. Bloomberg says that “Qatar is mobilising engineers and workers with the aim of resuming production at the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas export plant”. Al Jazeera adds that “it will take weeks for large oil tankers – now scattered thousands of miles away – to return to the Gulf to collect the millions of barrels sitting in large reservoirs”. MORE ON ENERGY CRISIS The Financial Times says that, due to the war in Iran, “Shell is set for a boost in earnings”, while “ExxonMobil warned of an up to $6.5bn hit to first-quarter earnings”. Bloomberg says that “Russia is earning more from its oil exports than at any time since the early weeks of the Ukraine war, as soaring prices and an uptick in flows raise the value of shipments to the most since June 2022”. Separately, Reuters reports that “the Ukrainian military hit ​Russia's oil terminal ‌in Russian-occupied Crimea”. Bloomberg: “Traders are bidding heavily for oil in the North Sea, a sign that supply remains tight despite a plunge in futures prices after the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire.” The South China Morning Post: “Global efforts to diversify energy sources are set to accelerate as the US-Israel conflict with Iran inflicts an unprecedented disruption on global supplies, analysts said.” The Financial Times reports that “US crude exports are projected to hit a record high in April as Asian customers hunt for supplies to replace Middle Eastern oil lost because of the Iran war”. Reuters reports that an EU Commission spokesperson said yesterday that “the energy crisis caused by ​the Iran conflict will not ‌be short-lived”. China’s wasting too much renewable power as curtailments rise Bloomberg China “wasted” 9.2% of solar power generation and 8.5% of wind power generation in January and February, compared with 6.1% and 6.2%, respectively, in the same period in 2025, reports Bloomberg. The rates are nearing the 10% ceiling set by the government in 2024 – a “clear signal” that China’s grid is struggling, according to the outlet. Energy news outlet International Energy Net carries detailed data on utilisation rates. Greenpeace director Grace Gao said China should be “setting a clear timeline for phasing out coal power”, reports Canadian broadcaster CBC. Meanwhile, the National Energy Administration (NEA) has called for continuing energy saving and carbon reduction with a focus on “enhancing renewable energy consumption capacity”, reports industry news outlet BJX News. China Power News Network says the computing “tokens” used for AI processing are becoming a key for China to “unlock its value of idle green power and enabling the global circulation of energy assets”. MORE ON CHINA Xinhua reports China has unveiled the world’s first “panoramic carbon emission accounting system” to support its “dual carbon” goals. MEE head Huang Runqiu has told UN official Selwin Hart that China is “willing to cooperate on addressing global climate challenges”, reports the Paper. Climate Home News has an interview focused on whether the end of China’s tax rebate on solar products will hurt Africa’s “solar boom”. China is pushing forward as the US “stepped back” on climate policy, writes Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Christine Loh in China Daily. Bloomberg says a “strong rebound” in China’s gas demand is unlikely despite the ceasefire in the Middle East. The New York Times says that China’s “vast” gas stockpile helps it “cushion the supply shock caused by the war”. Xinhua reports that relying solely on falling costs of “green hydrogen” production equipment is “no longer sustainable” for the industry. Sheinbaum proposes fracking plan as Mexico seeks to curb its reliance on US gas Ciara Nugent, Financial Times Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a plan to “utilise the nation’s 141tn cubic feet of unconventional gas reserves – typically accessed through fracking – subject to approval by an environmental committee”, reports the Financial Times. The newspaper adds: “There has been strong political opposition to fracking due to the excessive water required, as well as pollution and seismic risks. To date, Mexico has barely exploited its shale, tight and deepwater gas reserves. But Sheinbaum said soaring global energy costs during the Iran war had hastened a rethink on these types of unconventional gases, which her officials had floated last year. Mexico, the world’s largest buyer of US natural gas, relies on imports to cover about three-quarters of its demand…Sheinbaum, a former climate scientist who on Wednesday avoided using the term fracking, said technological advances had allowed the development of less harmful methods of unconventional gas extraction.” MORE ON LATIN AMERICA Deforestation in Colombia reached 72,409 hectares in 2025, 6% more than in 2024, reports El Espectador. Andean glaciers in South America face a “critical situation” due to climate change and extractive industries, according to experts in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, reports Mongabay. A new study has found that about 363,000 square kilometers of land in the Brazilian Amazon are threatened by mining extraction for clean energy, which could affect 178,000 Indigenous people, reports Scidev.net. Climate change has contributed to a decline in gray whales in Mexico, as its population dwindled from 27,000 to 13,000 over the last eight years, according to Excélsior. A feature in La Nación highlights how Argentina has to “learn lessons” from the wildfires that hit the country three months ago, by enhancing prevention measures such as fuel reduction and increasing investments in firefighting. Comment NASA flew by the moon, but behind the scenes, its science is a chaotic mess Dr Kate Marvel, The New York Times Dr Kate Marvel – a scientist who recently left her job at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies – explains her decision to leave in the New York Times. Marvel [who was interviewed by Carbon Brief in 2018] warns that “budget cuts, chaos and political interference” threaten NASA science. She says: “The final straw for me was when the NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, disparaged our work in the magazine Science in March. When asked about climate change, he argued that ‘for NASA to assemble scientists and put out papers on politically charged issues, whether or not this is an impending climate catastrophe, is not helpful to the broader NASA mission.’” She continues: “Reasonable people can disagree on what should be done to limit the effects of climate change. But rather than debate policy, the administration has chosen to attack science itself…Even as the evidence mounts that the climate is growing increasingly unstable, NASA’s study of Earth still offers plenty of wonder.” She concludes: “Everyone deserves the benefits that climate science can bring – an understanding of the present, the ability to plan for the future and the sheer joy of learning about the world, even as it changes. Without science, the stunning images of Earth from space are only pretty pictures. We all deserve so much more.” MORE COMMENT Bloomberg columnist Mark Gongloff writes that Hawaiian politicians and activists are pushing for a bill that “would give insurers the right to sue the fossil-fuel industry to recover disaster losses”. Climate scientists Gary Yohe, Henry Jacobs, Kristie Ebi and Richard Richels write in the Climate Cafe substack that climate change “negatively influences nearly every aspect of human security”. An editorial in Le Monde argues that “coal's resurgence is a symptom of an incomplete energy transition”. Nature has an editorial on the “staggering economic costs of climate change”, arguing that a “fracturing political consensus now risks accruing even heftier bills for future generations”. Betting on North Sea oil is a gamble with our household bills Hannah Spencer, The Independent Hannah Spencer, the recently elected Green MP for Gorton and Denton, writes in the Independent that “politicians who want to ‘get Britain drilling’ again in the North Sea are completely out of touch with what the public want – or need to keep warm”. Spencer says: “New oil and gas extraction in the North Sea will not bring our bills down. UK oil and gas are sold on global markets. Prices are set internationally, not by how many licences are issued in Westminster. New fields take years to come online, and when they do, they add only marginal supply.” She continues: “We should be strengthening the windfall tax and using those revenues to support the households hit hardest by rising costs – not handing more money back to private shareholders.” She also criticises Labour’s position, arguing that “a ‘ban’ on new licences means little if loopholes still allow new drilling to go ahead”. She concludes: “This is the moment to double down on the real solutions that will get this country off fossil fuels and protect us from another energy crisis, and to stop the oil and gas companies – and their political cheerleaders – from stalling our progress.” [See Carbon Brief’s recent factcheck: “Nine false or misleading myths about North Sea oil and gas.”] MORE UK COMMENT Guardian columnist Zoe William writes: “Ed Miliband hold firm! North sea oil and gas drilling won’t help anyone other than Nigel Farage.” The Financial Times Lex column says the “oil shock” caused by the Iran war “will take a long time to unwind”. Another Financial Times Lex column says that Toyota’s decision to continue offering hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles is a “hedge”, adding that “retaining flexibility may prove more valuable than going all in too early on a single bet”. Daily Telegraph assistant editor Jeremy Warner writes that “China is poised to control the technology of the future”, stating that “Beijing’s dominance of key industries such as energy and electric cars have left it with a huge trade surplus”. An editorial in the climate-sceptic Sun says: “At home, the war has also shone a harsh light on the deep flaws in Ed Miliband’s mad dash for net-zero. The PM must force him to lift a ban on drilling for new oil and gas.” Research Communities of “mobile” animals have a higher resistance to human-driven perturbations of tropical forests – including land-use conversion and climate change – than most trees | Nature Small wetlands remain “underappreciated” emission sources in the global methane budget | Nature Climate Change Weather extremes in the Sahel were “primarily driven” by human-caused aerosols | Communications Earth & Environment Other stories Millions facing hunger and water crisis in Somalia as world focuses on war in Middle East Nick Ferris, The Independent More harsh weather in store for Afghanistan after 148 deaths Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Reuters Comment: Extreme weather is already costing global businesses Simon Mundy, Financial Times I'm going there.' Oil drilling fuels a migrant surge in isolated city in Brazil's Amazon Gabriela SÁ Pessoa, The Washington Post From war to weather: A ’super El Niño’ event poses fresh risks to global food costs Sam Meredith, CNBC Libya announces new oil and gas discoveries with three major energy companies Ahmed Elumami and Ayman al-Werfalli, Reuters Are OnlyFans models the best way to explain the climate crisis? Stuart Heritage, The Guardian Argentina passes mining reform to spur investment near glaciers Lucila Sigal, Reuters 'Non-survivable': heatwaves are already breaching human limits, with worse to come, study finds Graham Readfearn, The Guardian Charging worries, high prices put brakes on EV growth in Bangladesh Helen Popper, Climate Home News France's emissions cuts slow again in 2025, throwing climate targets off track Agence France Presse Heat wipes out western snowpack, raising fears of summer drought Scott Dance, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey and Mira Rojanasakul, The New York Times Cuba runs on oil, and the oil is running out Ally J Levine, Travis Hartman, Tiana McGee and Marianna Parraga, Reuters Norway should not work towards nuclear power generation now, commission finds Nora Buli, Reuters The Iran war is driving a global surge of interest in electric vehicles Simmone Shah, Time Iran ceasefire eases fears but LNG sector left scarred, industry executive says Marwa Rashad, Reuters Ocean protections clash with mining pressure in Indonesia's Raja Ampat ecosystems Claudia Rosel, The Associated Press UK becomes top destination for US jet fuel after Gulf flow squeeze Ryohtaroh Satoh, Camilla Hodgson and Peter Campbell, Financial Times US-Iran ceasefire brings relief, but coal's heat lingers for India Samrat Sharma, NDTV World China's record purchase boosts Brazil monthly oil exports to second-highest Marta Nogueira and Roberto Samora, Reuters Australia eyes new fuel supply from US, Mexico and Asia as diesel prices spike to record high Luca Ittimani and Josh Butler, The Guardian This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Anika Patel, Henry Zhang and Yanine Quiroz. 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