The Daily Telegraph is among UK publications covering the first report of the National Infrastructure Commission, an independent group established in 2015 to advise the government on infrastructure challenges. The Daily Telegraph reports that the Commission has “dealt a blow to the government’s nuclear ambitions” by warning ministers to hold off on “pricey” nuclear deals and instead invest in renewable power and energy efficiency measures for homes and businesses. The Guardian reports that the advisers recommend backing just one new nuclear power station after Hinkley Point C in the next 25 years. The commission, which was launched by George Osborne in 2015, said that renewables had undergone a “quiet revolution” in the past decade, leading to falling costs, the Guardian reports. Sir John Armitt, the Commission’s chairman, said: “I don’t think anybody’s pretending you can take forward a new nuclear power station without some form of government underwriting or support. Whereas the amount required to subsidise renewables is continually coming down.” The Guardian also carries a comment piece from financial editor Nils Pratley, who writes that the report shows “the government should drop its obsession with building more and more nuclear power stations”. The report also recommends a revival of support for onshore wind and for half of the country’s electricity to be generated by renewables by 2030, the Times reports. Press Association and Bloomberg also have the story.

Former US president Al Gore has warned that Germany is losing its status as one of the global leaders in climate action as the country continues to depend on coal for its energy needs, Politico reports. “Germany was a model for the rest of the world and a narrative took hold here in Germany that might be summarised as ‘Germany leads and everyone follows,’” Gore told Politico in an interview. “But that narrative is now out of date.”

The Guardian reports that three banks have started to court buyers for a 49% stake in the UK’s eight nuclear power stations. The state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), which has a third stake in the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station project, has been named as a potential buyer, while Japanese and South Korean nuclear firms could also be in the frame, the Guardian reports.

Investments in renewable energy are growing faster in India than in China, Quartz reports. Quartz covers new analysis from Bloomberg New Energy Finance that finds that renewable energy investments in India rose 22% in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year, while investments by China fell by 15% during the period. If trends continue, India is expected to overtake China to become the largest growth market by the late 2020s.

An editorial in the Guardian warns that recent heatwaves felt in the UK and elsewhere are to become the “new, and dangerous, normal” as the climate warms. “Though we cannot say definitively that the current heatwave is caused by carbon emissions, it fits the pattern of long-term changes that we call climate,” the editorial reads. “In 20 years’ time, the heat of the last week will no longer be news. It will be routine. A responsible government would be planning for this perfectly foreseeable outcome. Ours, however, is otherwise preoccupied.”

China and the EU can work together to lead on global climate action, writes Professor Zou Ji, president of Energy Foundation China and former deputy director general of China’s National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, in EurActiv. An upcoming EU-China summit in Beijing should provide the platform for China and the EU to reconfirm their commitment to leading the fight against climate change, he writes. “It is in China’s own interest to connect with the international community and play a role in global climate action. This reflects the concept of ‘Community of Common Destiny’, an idea that indicates that China’s interest is aligned with the interest of the rest of the world.”

Areas of West Africa experiencing heat stress of the category “extreme caution” is projected to extend by up to 25% over most of the Gulf of Guinea, Sahel and Sahara desert areas under 1.5C and 2C of warming, a new study says. Using projections from the CORDEX‐Africa regional climate model, researchers find that seasonal proportion of the population at discomfort from heat substantially increases to more than 50% over most of the region. The results indicate that “from 50% to almost everyone” over most of the Sahel countries and parts of the western Sahara desert is at risk of possible heat cramp, heat exhaustion and heat stroke in future climate scenarios. “In general, all the above features are more extended and more frequent in the 2C than in 1.5C,” the authors note.

The abandonment of deforestation control policies would make it impossible for Brazil to meet emissions targets consistent with limiting global warming to 2C, a new study says. Using integrated assessment models, the researchers explore 2C-compliant CO2 emissions scenarios where environmental governance has been weakened, potentially resulting in higher deforestation emissions. The findings suggest that other sectors of the Brazilian economy “would need to deploy not yet mature technologies to compensate for higher emissions from land-use change”.

A new study presents an inventory of particulate black carbon (soot) for 18 major rivers around the globe. The researchers find that black carbon – emitted during wildfires and incomplete combustion of fossil fuels – makes up approximately 15% of the organic carbon in these rivers. Around 4-32% of the black carbon produced each year makes it into the oceans, the study says, where – if buried in marine sediments – it is sequestered to form a long-term sink for CO2.