Ocean temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef reached their highest level in 400 years over the past decade, according to new research covered by BBC News. The news outlet reports that the scientists behind the research say increased temperatures, driven by climate change, pose an “existential threat” to the Great Barrier Reef. According to the Associated Press, scientists at Australian universities were able to compare recent ocean temperatures to historical ones by using coral skeleton samples to reconstruct sea surface temperature data from 1618 to 1995, and coupling this with modern data from 1900 to 2024, the article explains. They were able to show five years of coral bleaching – when temperatures are so high that coral expel the algae that live within them – over the past decade, including this year, the article continues. This comes as scientists are currently trying to understand “the impacts of the most intense and extensive coral-bleaching event ever recorded for the 2,300-kilometre reef system”, according to Nature, which also published the new study. One of the team members quoted in the article, Dr Benjamin Henley, says there remains a “glimmer of hope”, if “we can come together and restrict global warming”. In its coverage, Reuters explains the importance of coral reefs, noting that they “protect shorelines from erosion, are home to thousands of species of fish, and are an important source of tourism revenue in many countries”. ABC News reports that the reef has been at risk for years of being placed on a list of Unesco World Heritage sites that are “in danger” of losing their status. “Last month the global committee ratified a recommendation not to place the reef on that list, but Unesco will require Australia to provide a progress report next year on the actions it had taken to improve the reef’s health,” the article notes. In the Guardian, Henley says he hopes the new findings can feed into assessments carried out by the Australian government and Unesco, noting simply: “It is our assessment that the reef is in danger.”

Meanwhile, the Conversation has an article about the largest known unconventional gas fields in Australia, which are “buried underneath pristine coral reefs” off the western coast of the country. It says the country’s largest independent oil and gas company, Woodside, wants to exploit the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa gas fields, but the state’s Environmental Protection Authority is “signalling it will reject this A$30 billion project”. 

Bloomberg reports that monthly sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in China, including electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, rose to 879,000 units in July and “likely surpassed 50% of all vehicles sales” for the first time, which marks “a key milestone in the country’s auto market”. The outlet adds that the “milestone” indicates that China’s EV sector “continues to enjoy strong momentum in China even as demand slows in the rest of the world”. Another Bloomberg article says that, according to a Goldman Sachs report, China’s manufacturing overcapacity is likely to “change course in the next few years” for some sectors, including lithium-ion batteries and solar products, with manufacturers to “wind down production to better suit demand”. However, such “relief isn’t likely” for the country’s EV and steel sectors, the outlet adds. 

Meanwhile, the Financial Times says 19 “battery gigafactory projects” have been “cancelled or postponed” in China. The newspaper adds that it has accelerated “an existing pullback of investment into battery plants” as EV sales slow. State news agency Xinhua and the state-sponsored outlet China News report the Ministry of Water Resources has issued 649m yuan ($90m) to support “flood relief” in 14 affected provinces. Industry outlet BJX News carries an article from the WeChat channel Dianlian Xinmei, which belongs to the China Power Enterprise Management magazine, saying that China’s new “dual-control” for carbon – a new system designed to cap carbon emissions – could help avoid “the drawbacks of directly restricting energy consumption” for companies and industries. (Read more in Carbon Brief’s Daily Briefing of 5 August.)

Finally, Bloomberg reports that China’s metal and power plant fuel imports “held up in July”, with “inbound shipments of coal” climbing to more than 46m tonnes. The Financial Times reports that “Qatar has invested in a US-backed initiative designed to loosen China’s dominance of minerals critical to clean energy in the first such collaboration between a western and Gulf state”. And Xinhua covers a report by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, which says China “leads global green patent applications”. 

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest fell by nearly half over the past 12 months, compared to the previous year, according to government satellite data covered by the Associated Press. The newswire notes that this marks “the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement”. Nevertheless, it adds that the Amazon still lost 4,300 square km of rainforest – “an area roughly the size of [the US state] Rhode Island” – over the last deforestation surveillance period, which runs from 1 August to 30 July. The outlet notes that deforestation has “steeply declined” since the left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took over from his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsolonaro, in 2022. Lula, whose current term ends in 2027, has committed to reach “deforestation zero” by 2030, it adds. The news is not entirely positive, Reuters reports, as deforestation rose by 33% compared to the previous month in July, “breaking a 15-month streak of falling destruction”. Joao Capobianco, Brazil’s vice minister for environment, attributed this increase to drought in the Amazon, a strike by environmental workers and “the fact that it is a municipal election year which tends to correlate with increased destruction”.

Glencore, the global commodities company, has abandoned a “radical” plan to spin off its coal division following objections from shareholders, in “one of the most striking examples of the shift in sentiment towards fossil fuels”, the Financial Times reports. The firm announced last year that it would split itself in two, in a major restructuring that would see it moving away from its highly profitable, but also highly polluting, coal business, the newspaper explains. The decision by Glencore to hold onto its coal division “comes after energy majors such as Shell and BP have recently stepped back from their efforts to woo environmental, social and governance [ESG] investors and instead promised to focus on their core oil and gas operations and boost returns to shareholders”, the article notes. The company has reported that 63% of its investors wanted to retain the fossil fuels assets, rather than listing them on the New York Stock Exchange and using the cash generated to fund expansion into “green’” transition metals, according to the Times. Glencore’s coal business has driven record returns in recent years, with the company benefiting from the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a “dearth of new production as rivals and banks turn their back on the sector”, Bloomberg says. It adds that, while some “western” countries are moving away from it, “global demand for coal is at record levels”. According to the Guardian, Gary Nagle, Glencore’s chief executive, said that views on ESG issues have “moved materially” and “the ESG pendulum has swung back over the last nine to 12 months”. He adds: “The world has recognised the need for coal as we decarbonise.” The newspaper says such comments are “likely to anger green groups that have campaigned against coal on the grounds it is one of the most polluting fossil fuels, and a leading contributor to the rise in global emissions”. The Lex column in the Financial Times reflects on Glencore’s “boundless opportunism”. It notes that, amid a shift in attitudes to ESG, the emerging preference among shareholders is “to have the spoils from highly polluting but profitable fossil fuel assets simply returned to them”.

Colombia’s capital Bogotá will host the first “regional methane summit” in Latin America and the Caribbean on 26 August, EFE Verde reports. The newswire notes that the summit – which will “bring together energy officials, companies and other organisations” – will address the “progress of a methane emissions observatory” for the region, as well as “financing opportunities” to reduce such emissions. 

Meanwhile, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum says her government “will boost and defend Mexico’s energy sovereignty” by “continuing the efficiency of current [oil]  refineries and boosting the petrochemical and fertilisers industry”, Excélsior reports. Sheinbaum’s government has a “long-term plan to increase renewable energy production”, the newspaper adds.

In other Latin American news, after a decade of megadrought, “abundant rainfall” has set four climate records in Santiago, Chile, including the wettest “June” on record, La Tercera reports. It cites climatologist Raúl Cordero, who says that besides El Niño and La Niña, the weakness of the Antarctic polar vortex may be influencing the autumn-winter season. In Argentina, Javier Milei’s government says it will fulfil its international climate commitments, but, according to Dialogue Earth, the lack of implementation and fragmentation of environmental policy creates uncertainty”. And El País covers a study published in Science addressing the rapid loss of Andean tropical glaciers “to their lowest levels” over the past 11,700 years. Researchers sampled rocks from snow-capped mountains in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru and found that glaciers have shrunk “faster than expected” since the Holocene period started about 12,000 years ago.

An editorial in the Washington Post walks readers through some of the key points around the growing threat of rising heat – noting that a study in 2020 detected multiple instances in which the temperature was “nearing or beyond prolonged human physiological tolerance”. The article includes a quiz to test readers’ preconceptions about the threat of heat. It explains that the risk facing people depends on their pre-existing vulnerabilities, where they are in the world and whether or not they have access to air conditioning. “In other words, preparedness and infrastructure matter,” it explains. “Development brought enormous progress in protecting people from natural disasters over the past few hundred years. The question is whether technology and economic growth can keep it up, despite increasingly volatile weather.” The editorial notes that “a warming world brings one, albeit slim, silver lining”, namely that fewer people will likely die due to cold. However, it adds that the net effect of warming on temperature-related deaths “will depend strongly on how well people prepare for the weather”. The editorial emphasises the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions, noting that even when they are cut the world will continue to warm for a while due to gases already in the atmosphere. “This is not an excuse for inaction, but the opposite. The best approach is to drive adoption of renewables, so electricity is plentiful and green, along with investment in the infrastructure humans will need to live in a warming world,” it concludes.

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph has given a platform to the climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley to claim that “Britain’s net-zero crusade is leaving us vulnerable to blackouts”. The newspaper does not inform its readers that Ridley’s inherited estate has earned income from coal-mining or that he has close links to climate-sceptic lobbyists.

Heat extremes in the sea containing the Great Barrier Reef from January-March in 2024, 2017 and 2020 were the “warmest in 400 years”, according to a new study. Using a multi-century reconstruction of sea surface temperature data on the Coral Sea on the Australian coast along with climate model analysis, the researchers highlight the “existential threat” that human-caused climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. Without “urgent intervention”, the researchers write that the reef risks “experiencing temperatures conducive to near-annual coral bleaching” in future. They note: “In the absence of rapid, coordinated and ambitious global action to combat climate change, we will likely be witness to the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders.”