There is continued coverage of Covid-19’s effect on efforts to tackle climate change, scientific research and the energy sector. Bloomberg reports that several key climate policy events, including ongoing UN climate talks and an EU-China climate summit due to take place at the end of the month, have been postponed. New climate policy is also “at risk of stalling on a national level”, Bloomberg says. It adds: “The UK scaled back plans to put environment at the centre of its budget last week. Spain, which has made climate change a central part of its political agenda, halted all legislative activity for at least two weeks and declared a state of emergency over the weekend.” Sky News correspondents have been tweeting that “sources” have told them that a postponement to COP26 in Glasgow is now being considered.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Covid-19 is creating a “solar industry crisis”. “Fallout from the pandemic has impacted both supply chains and demand in the fast-growing industry, and the president of the top U.S. solar trade group said its annual market report’s projection of 47% growth in 2020 will be ratcheted down in the coming weeks and months,” Reuters says. Elsewhere, BusinessGreen reports that the outbreak is likely to delay European wind projects. Giles Dixon, CEO of WindEurope, tells BusinessGreen it is “too soon to judge” the impacts on production and revenues in Europe’s offshore and onshore wind sectors, but warned developers could well face financial penalties from project delays. A story in the Times notes that coronavirus lockdowns around the world have led to sharp declines in air pollution in major cities. CNN also says that the lockdown has “had an unintended benefit – blue skies”. It also quotes Carbon Brief’s recent analysis showing the impact on China’s emissions.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports that: “The big drop on [EU] carbon prices show a turnaround for a commodity that had showed some strength. European polluters had been buying allowances to comply with limits imposed by the bloc for the last year. With industrial production weakening and airlines consuming less fuel, demand for those certificates is likely to slide.”

The New York Times reports that Covid-19 has forced the world’s largest Arctic expedition to cancel a series of research flights. (Carbon Brief joined the expedition for its first six weeks last autumn.) The New York Times says: “The flights, which were to have begun from Svalbard, a group of islands far north of mainland Norway, this month, already had been delayed when one participant tested positive for the virus while still in Germany. But late last week Norway imposed new restrictions requiring that any nonresident entering the country be placed in quarantine for two weeks. Those obstacles proved too logistically difficult to overcome.” Vice reports that NASA has also been forced to cancel climate change missions due to the virus. NASA delayed two airborne missions that study Earth’s climate and the effects of climate change and one tasked with understanding extreme weather, Vice reports. This is due to the virus’s “potential impact on travel during the next few weeks”, a NASA spokesperson tells Vice.

There is also continued coverage of how the pandemic, in tandem with an oil price slide, is affecting big oil companies. Reuters reports that ExxonMobil has announced it will make a significant cut to spending, while the Times reports that BP’s dividend “faces the chop”. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that investors have abandoned plans to refinance the US oil and gas driller EP Energy in the wake of the crises. A second Reuters story says that one the first US shale gas companies is moving to restructure its debt. The FT also reports that the International Energy Agency has warned the oil price collapse could cut the revenue of “vulnerable” oil-producing countries by up to 85%. Such countries include Ecuador, Iraq and Nigeria, the FT says. And the Guardian reports that “energy companies [in the UK] have started preparing emergency plans to cope with coronavirus disruption, including the possibility of operating with only a fifth of their usual staff numbers”.

Guest post from Carbon Brief