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Ajit Niranjan, The Guardian
Many publications cover new analysis finding that 16,500 out of the 24,400 heat deaths recorded across Europe from June to August this year can be attributed to fossil-fuelled global warming, the equivalent of two in three heat deaths. The Guardian says that the analysis looks at 854 cities across Europe and finds that “climate breakdown made the cities 2.2C hotter on average, greatly increasing the death toll from dangerously warm weather”. Agence France-Presse reports that the attribution analysis is the “latest effort by climate and health researchers to quickly link the death toll during heatwaves to global warming, without waiting months or years to be published in a peer-reviewed journal”. It continues: “The estimated deaths were not actually recorded in the European cities, but instead were a projection based on methods such as modelling used in previously peer-reviewed studies.” There is further coverage in the New York Times, Bloomberg and Inside Climate News.
MORE ON EU EXTREMES
The New York Times says a report by European lawmakers shows that extreme weather this summer has cost the EU €43bn (£37bn). Spain’s meteorological service has confirmed the nation faced its hottest summer on record in 2025, Deutsche Welle reports.
Zia Weise and Louise Guillot, Politico
The EU is set to miss an extended UN deadline to submit a new 2035 climate pledge next week and instead present a global meeting with a “statement of intent”, following conflict between nations on how to set the goal, Politico reports. It continues: “EU governments, who have to unanimously approve the 2035 plan mandated by the Paris Agreement, are at odds over how to arrive at the target. As a result, Denmark, the country currently chairing negotiations among governments, suggested to other countries on Tuesday that the EU will merely send a ‘statement of intent’ to the UN instead of submitting the required formal plan. The Danes now expect the EU’s 27 environment ministers to finalise and approve the statement of intent at their meeting in Brussels on Thursday.” Reuters also has the story, saying it has seen documents suggesting that the EU has “drafted plans to submit a temporary goal, which could change later”. Euractiv has an explainer on what the EU’s 2035 pledge could be.
Alice Li, South China Morning Post
Chinese president Xi Jinping has “called for more efforts to develop a unified domestic market” and outlined six key tasks for policymakers to address, including “excessive cutthroat competition”, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports, citing remarks by Xi published in top ideological journal Qiushi. In another Qiushi article, top officials at the National Development and Reform Commission have called for regulation of the “disorderly competition” in the EV and solar industries. The Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily says on the frontpage of its print edition that while China’s “high-quality” clean-tech industries have “significantly contributed” to the global energy transition, “we must also recognise that high-input, low-output ‘involutionary’ competition is detrimental to healthy industrial development and deviates from the essence of high-quality growth”. The article is under the byline Jin Sheping, which is used to signal the thoughts of party leadership on economic matters.
MORE ON CHINA
Low coal prices are “complicating” China’s efforts to limit coal consumption, Bloomberg says. China’s first “offshore CO2 storage demonstration project” has “matured”, having stored more than 100m cubic metres of CO2, China Energy Net reports. Former MOST vice-minister Liu Yanhua writes that “combining AI with green energy…[will lead] us toward a greener, more intelligent future” in China Daily. BJX News republishes an article by State Grid Energy Research Institute party secretary Ouyang Changyu saying the power sector must address three main challenges during the “15th five-year plan” period. China Daily reports that China’s green electricity certificates market has “entered a new phase of growth in recent years”. People’s Daily says carbon markets are an “important policy tool for China to actively respond to climate change”.
Jayashree Nandi, Hindustan Times
India “will require at least $10tn by 2070” to meet its net-zero target, according to the country’s climate minister Bhupender Yadav, reports the Hindustan Times. Yadav is quoted by the newspaper as saying the “UNFCCC process of $300bn by 2035 is insufficient” and that the “global north must rise to hold its promises”. According to the minister, “high-integrity carbon markets…can channel billions into mitigation that would otherwise not be financed” and, as per central bank estimates, India would have to spend $1.05tn by 2030 “to adapt [its] industries to climate norms”, the story adds. Meanwhile, the country plans to launch and “substantially” incentivise a national carbon capture initiative, Reuters reports. Central electricity authorities quoted in Down to Earth say that India plans to add 97 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity by 2035, “as regulators seek to tackle grid reliability challenges posed by surging renewable energy”. India has added 23GW of new renewable electricity capacity in the first five months of the current fiscal year – and is on track to “double this in the next seven months” – according to renewable energy minister Pralhad Joshi, quoted in the Indian Express.
MORE ON INDIA
The Economic Times reports that India’s environmental authorities have greenlit a fourfold expansion of Shell’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Gujarat’s Hazira port. Carbon Copy takes a look at the “forecasting challenge” ahead of the 150-year-old India Meteorological Department and if it can “reinvent itself fast enough to meet the storms of tomorrow”. The Press Trust of India reports on a new study that finds climate change may be driving a “co-occurrence of droughts” across multiple river basins in India. A Time magazine comment by author M Rajshekhar unpacks the “relentless…push” for the Great Nicobar project, “one of the last remaining ecological treasures on the planet to be flipped into a resource frontier”.
Jane Dalton and David Maddox, The Independent
Climate protesters last night disrupted a Republican dinner in Windsor celebrating Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK, the Independent reports. It says: “Campaigners from Fossil Free London shouted ‘how many will you kill if you drill, baby, drill’ – mocking one of the US president’s famous sayings – and held up banners reading ‘oily money kills’ as drums were beaten.” Trump arrived in the UK last night for a two-day visit, the Guardian says, with protesters gathering in Windsor last night and in central London today.
MORE ON UK
The Daily Mail reports that Keir Starmer has been “forced to abandon” hopes of a new deal with the US to cut tariffs on UK steel ahead of Trump’s arrival. The Guardian covers research finding that taxing the UK’s SUVs in line with other European countries could raise almost £2bn a year for the public finances. The Scottish Fiscal Commission, an independent forecaster, has said that Scotland will need to spend an extra £700m until mid-century to tackle and adapt to climate change, the Times reports. The climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph reports that power company SSE has submitted plans to build 550 new pylons in Scotland, claiming this will “blight” the countryside. The Daily Telegraph also says the UK plans to build a new port in Southampton by the end of the decade to process electric vehicles from Asia, which it negatively describes as a “flood”. A third Daily Telegraph story reports on comments made by a former Labour minister about the need for concerns over nature not to hold up new infrastructure with the headline: “Eco-zealots are crushing the economy, says Miliband’s former energy minister.”
Kate Abnett, Reuters
The UN has urged its staff to “limit attendance” to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November over high hotel costs, Reuters reports. The newswire says that UN climate chief Simon Stiell posted a document published on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s website saying: “In view of the capacity constraints in Belem, I would like to kindly request that heads of the UN system, specialised agencies and other relevant organisations review the size of their delegations at COP30 and reduce numbers where possible.” Reuters adds that Brazil's COP30 presidency released a statement saying it is still committed to providing “single rooms with rates between US$100 and US$200, maintaining the standards adopted at other COPs”.
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