Airlines should tell UK customers the carbon impact of flights, watchdog says

Airlines and booking firms should give UK customers information about the environmental impact of their flights, the regulator has said.The Civil Aviation Authority urged booking sites to enable passengers to make “more informed travel decisions” by setting out estimates for carbon emissions for flights landing or taking off from British airports.New guidance published by the CAA aims to standardise the kind of data already published by some airlines and websites and to make it available at the time of booking so passengers can make comparisons.The regulator said it would start monitoring and possibly enforcing the new rules after April 2027.It said the carbon emission data should reflect factors such as aircraft type and fuel use, and take into account the type of seat occupied

Drax insiders privately raised concerns over its sustainability claims, court papers show

Senior executives at Drax raised concerns internally about the validity of the energy company’s sustainability claims while it publicly denied allegations that it was cutting down environmentally important forests for fuel, court documents have revealed.Britain’s biggest power plant assured ministers and civil servants of the company’s green credentials as it scrambled to defend itself against claims in a BBC Panorama documentary that it had burned wood sourced from “old-growth” forests in Canada.The company’s senior leaders, including its chief executive, publicly denied the allegations, but other executives at the North Yorkshire plant privately raised concerns that it did not have sufficient evidence to back up the sustainability claims, according to evidence submitted to an employment tribunal involving its former top lobbyist.The owners of Drax have received more than £7bn in subsidies levied on household energy bills on the condition that the biomass pellets are made from waste or low-value wood from sustainable forests.However, the company has faced repeated scepticism over the sustainability of its business model, which involves importing millions of tonnes of wood pellets across the Atlantic every year

Striking Starbucks workers urge customers to delete coffee chain’s app

Striking Starbucks baristas are calling on customers of the world’s largest coffee chain to delete its popular mobile app in solidarity with their demands for a first union contract.Starbucks Workers United, which has been coordinating a strike for almost three months, is vowing to press ahead.“We baristas are still fighting for a fair contract, and this fight is active and ongoing,” said KC Ihekwaba, a barista at Starbucks in Lafayette, Colorado, on a solidarity union call earlier this week. “Our fire for change is still burning. Our spirits still strong

FTSE 100 falls back from record high amid AI worries; gold heads for best day since 2008 – as it happened

And finally, the FTSE 100 has closed down 27 points or 0.26% at 10,314, away from the record high hit this morning.Although miners and precious metal producers rallied, as the gold and silver price jumped, the index was dragged down by Relx (-14.3%) and the London Stock Exchange Group (-12.8%), as investors reacted to US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic unveileing a tool for companies’ in-house lawyers

What are the odds? The RBA has raised interest rates – for no real reason other than to meet the desires of speculators | Greg Jericho

Has there been an interest rate rise more desired by some economists and commentators despite no real reason, than the one pushed for on Tuesday? Alas, the Reserve Bank listened to the noise and felt compelled to raise the cash rate to 3.85%, but one wonders if they listened more to the noise of the commentariat than the data.In Tuesday’s announcement, the RBA monetary policy board barely changed anything from its December statement.In December the board thought: “While inflation has fallen substantially since its peak in 2022, it has picked up more recently”. Now it says: “While inflation has fallen substantially since its peak in 2022, it picked up materially in the second half of 2025

Bank of England holds interest rates and ‘shocked’ over Mandelson; Rio-Glencore merger talks collapse – as it happened

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has added his voice to those condemning Peter Mandelson for leaking market-sensitive information at the time of the global financial crisis, our economics editor Heather Stewart writes.“I am shocked by what we are hearing,” Bailey said (see earlier post), when asked about the revelations at a Bank press conference.We do learn from that that there are times when … lobbying happens which has ethics attached to it which I do find shocking, frankly.Asked again about his personal feelings, Bailey, who worked with the Treasury on the response to the 2008 financial crisis, appeared to become emotional as he compared the actions of Mandelson to those of the late chancellor, Alistair Darling.Bailey reminds journalists at the Bank that he and his colleagues at the press conference, Clare Lombardelli and Dave Ramsden, all knew Darling (who died in 2023)