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Oil firm says gas could account for 10% of global energy consumption by end of century

Planes and trucks powered by hydrogen will be a crucial part of efforts to cut carbon emissions to safe levels, according to oil giant Shell.

For the first time, the Anglo Dutch firm, which is facing calls by activist shareholders to take stronger action on global warming, has mapped out how the world could hit the Paris climate deal’s target of keeping temperature rises below 2C.

For optimists, it was tempting to view three years of flatlining global carbon emissions, from 2014-16, as the new normal. We now know celebrations should be put on hold. Figures for 2017 published last week show global emissions from energy have jumped back up again, to a historic high.

The data from the International Energy Agency shows we still have much to do when it comes to stopping global warming. Three years ago experts cautioned that 2015’s near standstill in emissions might be only a temporary pause before resuming the upward march as India and China developed. Those warnings were prophetic.

Michael Dukes’ Weatherwatch report at the back of Tuesday’s Guardian (20 March) is far too important to be relegated to such a minor position. He is giving us what should be considered front-page news and his few column inches must be expanded into a longer article that fully explains the science and mechanism behind the two unprecedented weather events of the past three weeks, when London was colder than the north pole.

Climate change, bringing Arctic meltdown, has serious global effects which mean very much more than the extinction of polar bears. Climatologists have long been warning of new atmospheric conditions which make freak events the new normal. The latest by Jennifer Francis comes in the April edition of Scientific American, which predicts massive coastal flooding within the next 20 years. In the short term, however, we should be concerned about the return of more “beast” events next month or even in May, when plant growth will be in full swing. Imagine the effect on food production.Dr Tim MegarryLondon

Birds are not just diverse, vivid and extraordinary. They can also save our souls – let’s protect them

For most of my life, I didn’t pay attention to birds. Only in my 40s did I become a person whose heart lifts whenever he hears a grosbeak singing or a towhee calling, and who hurries out to see a golden plover that’s been reported in the neighbourhood, just because it’s a beautiful bird, with truly golden plumage, and has flown all the way from Alaska. When someone asks me why birds are so important to me, all I can do is sigh and shake my head, as if I’ve been asked to explain why I love my brothers. And yet the question is a fair one: why do birds matter?

My answer might begin with the vast scale of the avian domain. If you could see every bird in the world, you’d see the whole world. Things with feathers can be found in every corner of every ocean and in land habitats so bleak that they’re habitats for nothing else. Grey gulls raise their chicks in Chile’s Atacama desert, one of the driest places on Earth.

Related: Europe faces 'biodiversity oblivion' after collapse in French birds, experts warn