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TODAY'S CLIMATE AND ENERGY HEADLINES
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There is widespread coverage of record-breaking heat sweeping large parts of Europe this weekend. France24 reports: “Spain, France and other western European nations on Saturday sweltered under a blistering June heatwave that has sparked forest fires and concerns that such early summer blasts of hot weather will now become the norm.” Bloomberg reports that France’s thermic indicator, an average of daily temperatures across the country, rose to 27.4C (81.3F) on Saturday, the highest ever for the month of June. Bloomberg adds that three towns in France saw new temperature records set, with Biarritz, “a favourite of European royalty in the 19th century known for its mild summers”, recording 42.9C heat. Separately, France24 reports on how climate change is leading to earlier heatwaves in western Europe. BBC News says that outdoor events were banned in the worst affected parts of France in response to the heat. Agence-France Presse reports that, in Spain, forest fires struck nearly 9,000 hectares (22,240 acres) of land in the north-west Sierra de la Culebra region on Friday, displacing 200 people. Additionally, more than 3,000 people were evacuated from the Puy du Fou theme park in central Spain because of a fire, AFP says. Reuters reports that, in Italy, the early heat has compounded drought risk for farmers. Reuters also reports that a demand for air-conditioning amid the heat has put Europe’s energy systems to the test.
In UK coverage of the heatwave, the Financial Times reports that the UK had its hottest day of the year so far on Friday, with 30C heat recorded in parts of south-east England and a high of 31.8C recorded at Heathrow. The Sunday Times reports on how some scientists are calling for heatwaves to be named, in a similar way to storms, to encourage people to take their impacts more seriously. Meanwhile, the Big Issue reports on how UK homes are not prepared for rising heat. In addition, the Guardian reports on why heatwaves around the world are getting more intense. On Twitter, Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman explores how the Daily Mail used extreme heat in the UK to attack “snowflake” former footballer Gary Lineker for raising the alarm on climate change.
At least 59 people have been killed and millions more left homeless in floods and heavy rain affecting India and Pakistan on Saturday, Associated Press reports. AP reports that lightning strikes triggered by storms have killed at least 21 people in Bangladesh since Friday afternoon, including three children aged 12 to 14. In India’s Assam state, 18 people died in the floods or landslides, it adds. The report says: “Bangladesh, a nation of 160 million people, is low-lying and faces threats from climate change-related natural disasters such as floods and cyclones. According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, about 17% of people in Bangladesh would need to be relocated over the next decade or so if global warming persists at the present rate.” Reuters reports that southern China has also been impacted by severe rains and floods.
Elsewhere, Reuters also reports that India’s Russian coal purchases have spiked in recent weeks despite global sanctions on Moscow.
Amid record-breaking weather events around the world, the Guardian carries quotes from the UN chief saying that fossil fuel companies and the banks that finance them “have humanity by the throat”. Speaking to the Major Economies Forum, a climate summit organised by the US, Antonio Guterres said: “We seem trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat. For decades, the fossil fuel industry has invested heavily in pseudoscience and public relations – with a false narrative to minimise their responsibility for climate change and undermine ambitious climate policies. They exploited precisely the same scandalous tactics as big tobacco decades before. Like tobacco interests, fossil fuel interests and their financial accomplices must not escape responsibility.” Politico notes that Boris Johnson did not attend the US climate meeting of major economies.
In a frontpage story, the Daily Telegraph reports that “ministers are backing away from a windfall tax on Britain’s electricity generators in favour of a French-inspired consumer price mechanism”. The newspaper reports chancellor Rishi Sunak has “cooled on the idea of a windfall tax on generators”, adding: “Under plans being drawn up in Whitehall, a new system would break the link between the price of low-carbon electricity and that of natural gas, which has risen to record highs following Russia’s war on Ukraine. This would allow energy suppliers to take advantage of the comparatively cheaper cost of electricity generated by wind and solar farms – and pass on the savings to households and businesses.” Separately, the Daily Telegraph reports that the Norwegian state oil giant behind a £4.5bn North Sea project has threatened to abandon it over the UK’s windfall tax. And the Times reports on claims from Offshores Energies UK (formerly Oil and Gas UK) that the windfall tax is undermining “big investments that are needed to keep the lights on”. In addition, Bloomberg reports that the nuclear power startup Newcleo has raised £315m to help it develop pilot projects in the UK and France. The Sunday Telegraph explores why nuclear roll-out has been slow in the UK and the Daily Telegraph says fracking lobbyists want the planning status of the drilling technology changed to be “nationally significant” to help block local resistance.
It comes as the Daily Mail and the Daily Express publish two near identical stories on how “Red Wall Tory MPs” are calling on prime minister Boris Johnson to “ditch a string of green policies if he wants to win the next general election”. On Twitter, Carbon Brief’s policy editor Dr Simon Evans points out that both stories incorrectly state that green levies make up 25% of energy bills, when the actual figure is under 5%. A separate tweet by Jack Richardson, a representative of the Conservative Environment Network, describes the Daily Mail’s reporting as “laughably false”, accusing the paper of “cherry picking a few quotes which in no way amount to ‘ditching the green agenda’”.
In addition, DeSmog reports that the UK government has rejected a petition by a climate sceptic to overturn the country’s ban on fracking.
Germany has announced a series of measures to cut gas use and boost storage of the fuel, including via “increased use of coal power plants”, Politico reports. It quotes German economy and climate protection minister Robert Habeck saying: “We will reduce gas consumption in the electricity sector and industry and push the filling of storage facilities. Depending on the situation, we will take further measures.” Die Welt explains that the coalition government expects greater use of coal power for a transitional period, until March 2024, but plans to stick to its coal phaseout timeline of “ideally” ending use of the fuel by 2030. Reuters says that up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of coal capacity currently held in reserve could be brought back into the market via legislation, set to be introduced on 8 July. It adds that an auction system will encourage industry to use less gas. The Financial Times runs the story under the headline: “Germany fires up coal plants to avert gas shortage as Russia cuts supply.” It quotes Habeck, a member of the Green party, saying the decision to reopen the 10GW of mothballed plants for up to two years is “bitter but in this situation essential to lower the use of gas”. The paper adds: “Germany’s three remaining active nuclear power plants have a capacity of 4GW and are scheduled to go off the grid by the end of this year. Their lifespan will not be extended as the government has concluded the technical and safety hurdles are too high.” According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German industry supports Habeck’s plans. It quotes the head of the German industry lobby group BDI, Siegfried Russwurm, saying: “Gas generation had to be stopped and coal-fired power plants had to be pulled from the reserve immediately.” Bloomberg says “the government will also offer additional credit lines by state-owned lender KfW to guarantee gas injections at storage sites” and “provide the gas-market manager Trading Hub with the liquidity it needs to purchase more gas to fill storage sites”. Finally, Der Tagesspiegel reports that the German political party FDP, which is part of the ruling coalition, wants to “put the ban on natural gas production in Germany through so-called fracking to the test”, adding the quote of its parliamentary director Torsten Herbst: “As scientific studies show, fracking does not cause any relevant environmental damage under modern safety standards”. It goes on to quote Habeck rejecting the idea, stating that “the debate about fracking is of no use to us at all at this time”.
Another Financial Times article is titled: “EU fears of being held to ransom by Russia over gas become a reality.” It says: “With one eye on a potentially difficult winter, Germany has been one of the few major economies to launch an efficiency drive, calling on citizens to conserve energy this summer so that there is more gas available to go into storage ahead of the colder seasons. Italy, where supplies from Gazprom have dropped by 15%, could activate an emergency plan to curtail gas use next week, including curbing supplies to some industrial users. But others, including the UK, have so far declined to make a conservation push a national priority. Another option would be to burn more highly polluting coal and consider other politically challenging policies…Long-term the EU will utilise more renewables but there is not enough time to add significant capacity ahead of the winter.” The New York Times says a “crisis” in the French nuclear fleet is “frustrat[ing] Europe’s push to quit Russian energy”. It reports: “Around half of France’s atomic fleet, the largest in Europe, has been taken offline as a storm of unexpected problems swirls around the nation’s state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF.”
French president Emmanuel Macron is projected to lose his absolute majority in parliament by a wide margin, which could “complicate his leadership at a time when Europe faces profound challenges prompted by the war in Ukraine”, reports the Washington Post. “A historic alliance of parties on the left, led by the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party with the Socialists and the Greens, became the largest opposition group, and is expected to have 133 seats”, reports the Guardian. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party has increased its number of seats from eight in 2017 to 89, according to projections from French broadcaster TF1 – “a historic high for a party that in the past has struggled to make gains in the first-past-the-post parliamentary voting system”, the paper continues. Élisabeth Borne, Macron’s prime minister, vowed that the government would start work on building a “majority that could do business, including pursuing Macron’s aims of full employment and an ‘ambitious ecological transition’ to combat climate change by investing in renewable energy”, reports the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, “more than 600 French entrepreneurs” have penned a letter in Le Monde objecting to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline – representing “35m tonnes of CO2 per year”, or “the equivalent of the emissions of 3.5 million French people”. The letter invoked Antonio Gutteres, UN secretary general, who recently stated that, “investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure equals to moral and economic folly.”
China will ban “new steel, coking, oil refining, cement and glass projects” in “key zones”, reports Reuters, citing a government document published on Friday. The newswire says the “wide-ranging policy document aimed at tackling pollution and meeting the country’s climate goals” includes pledges to ensure that “new energy vehicles make up around 50% of total car sales by around 2030” and to “prioritise the development of biomass, geothermal or solar energy for heating”.
Meanwhile, an “exclusive” by Reuters says that China’s national oil majors are in “advanced talks” with Qatar to invest in the North Field East expansion of the “world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project” and buy the fuel under “long-term contracts”, citing “three people with knowledge of the matter”. Bloomberg also reports on the talk between the two countries. The Guardian reports that “China’s crude oil imports from Russia soared by 55% from a year earlier to a record level in May, displacing Saudi Arabia as the top supplier, as refiners cashed in on discounted supplies amid sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine”.
Elsewhere, China has launched “a series of favourable policies” to “boost the sales of automobiles” amid the country’s “efforts to resume car production and stabilise supply chains”, reports Xinhua. Chen Shihua – deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) – estimated that one of the polices, a tax cut, would generate “additional sales of more than 2m units and drive up auto consumption by over 300bn yuan ($44.7bn)”, the state news agency notes. Finally, another Xinhua article writes that China “plans to build eight new national atmosphere background watch stations” by the end of 2025 to “strengthen greenhouse gas observation”, according to the country’s meteorological authority. In addition, the South China Morning Post reports on how China’s state energy firms are advocates for cutting emissions but are yet themselves to make ambitious targets, according to experts.
Amid record-breaking extreme weather around the world, writer and broadcaster Jeff Sparrow examines how claims from the far-right that climate change is an issue of the “woke elite” could “not be more wrong”. He says: “Across the planet, rising temperatures mean densely populated areas become “urban heat islands”, as the concrete landscapes inhabited by working-class families absorb the sun and then warm up the air. By combining satellite measurements with census data, University of North Carolina researcher Angel Hsu has shown how heat correlates both with poverty and race. Shockingly, almost everywhere in America communities of colour endure temperatures a degree higher on average than those faced by non-Hispanic white people.” The Guardian also carries an op-ed from Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, on what modern cities should look like as urban temperatures rise.
It comes as the Daily Mirror publishes an editorial celebrating the heatwave, saying: “You can’t beat a great British summer at its very best and four heatwaves on their way is a real treat.”
An editorial in the New York Times argues that “covid, climate change and now the spectre of a global food crisis show clearly that the world’s problems are intimately linked, as are solutions”. It says: “The power of cooperation has been on display in the coordinated response to Russia’s aggression. More cooperation, not less, is required to navigate a path forward through other crises…The US can help itself and the rest of the world by working with other nations – especially the countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia that are most at risk – to address a major impending food crisis. Shortages are already acute in parts of Africa, and some of the reasons are well known: the extreme weather of climate change, the economic ravages of Covid-19, the inequality of resources. But a new and devastating problem has been created by Russia’s cruel war on Ukraine.”
In an investigation, Climate Home News identifies “hundreds of problematic [carbon offset] projects that could be used to greenwash national and corporate climate plans” under a deal made at COP26 in Glasgow last year. CHN reveals at least 804 projects “whose past emission reductions can be bought by countries as a cheap way to meet their climate targets”. It adds: “Under rules agreed at last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, UK, carbon credits generated by these projects are eligible for use towards national 2030 emissions goals.”
Sub-Arctic permafrost soils in forest regions lose 15% of their organic carbon stores when converted to cropland, and 23% when converted to grasslands, new research finds. The authors sampled permafrost and non-permafrost soils from 18 farms across Yukon, to determine the impact of land-use change on soil organic carbon stocks. They find that land-use change from forest to cropland or grassland “strongly enhanced warming and subsequent [permafrost] thawing”. The study adds: “The fate of soil organic carbon after land-use change greatly depended on the abundance of permafrost in the pristine forest, which was driven by climatic conditions more than by soil properties.”
Human disturbance is the most important driver of carbon stocks in the Atlantic forest, an area that runs along the eastern coast of South America, according to a new study. The authors used a dataset of almost 900 forest inventories to assess the effects of environmental conditions, human impacts, tree community properties and sampling methods on tree above-ground carbon stocks. They conclude: “Within-forest disturbance level was the most important driver, with effect at least 30% higher than any of the environmental conditions individually.” The other environmental conditions investigated include climate, soil, topography and forest fragmentation.
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