Human-caused global warming made July hotter than average for four out of five people globally, according to a new flash study, reports the Associated Press. More than 6.5 billion people, or 81% of the world’s population, felt the impact on at least one day last month, the article notes. The analysis, conducted by nonprofit news organisation Climate Central, looked at daily temperatures in 4,700 cities around the world, measuring the impact of climate change using the “climate shift index”, reports the Los Angeles Times. The article quotes vice president of science at Climate Central Andrew Pershing, who says there is “nothing about this that is normal”. The article quotes Pershing continuing: “These are conditions that are going to become more common, more severe, as we continue to put more and more CO2 in the atmosphere. Until there’s no more CO2 being added to the atmosphere, temperatures are going to continue to rise, and this year eventually will start to look like an average year, or a cool year.” While the methods have been peer-reviewed, the new results have not yet undergone peer review, notes NBC, adding that Climate Central has “a strong reputation for analysing climate trends”. The study identified hotspots for climate change influence, including the Caribbean, Central America, northern Africa, the Middle East, the Sahel and parts of Canada, reports Axios. For example, the Caribbean was ranked as a five on the index, meaning climate change made the heat there at least five times more likely to occur, the article adds.

India’s upper house of parliament cleared a “contentious” forest conservation bill on Wednesday, “opening the door for…exploitation of vast tracts of forest lands and potentially endangering sensitive ecosystems”, the Hindustan Times reports. The bill that hundreds of experts warn could “endanger as much as 25% of India’s forest cover” was passed after a debate that lasted less than two hours, “without any member from the opposition that walked out over the violence” in the country’s northeast, it adds. The region’s forests stand to be affected the most by the act’s exemptions, according to the story. It quotes India’s forest and climate minister Bhupender Yadav, who cited India’s carbon sink target in its climate pledge as a central justification for the bill: “How can we achieve that? How can we improve green cover and at the same time bring social and economic development?” In a story in Science, conservation biologist Ravi Chellam is quoted calling the legislation “ecocide” and saying that “functional, dynamic ecosystems will do a far better job of carbon sequestration than species-poor tree plantations”. At particular risk are “forests managed by local communities”, the story says, with ecologist Ghazala Shahabuddin telling Science that the law continues a legislative trend of weakening public participation and “reducing people to just rubber stamps”. The Third Pole examines the risks the bill poses to “climate hotspots” in the Himalayas. Meanwhile, analysis in the Hindu states that its “focus on creating carbon sinks instead of the act’s aim to conserve existing forests [doesn’t] bode well”.

India’s parliament approved another bill on Wednesday that allows the private sector to mine critical minerals including lithium, the Economic Times reports. It allows private firms to apply for an exploration licence via auction and, as Carbon Copy reported earlier, to “suggest areas for exploration and extraction”, a “stark departure” from current norms around coal and other minerals. Bloomberg reports that India is also considering allowing private firms to develop nuclear power plants, “with an aim to develop small modular reactors”. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that state-owned Solar Energy Corp has proposed to “invite international bids” to supply renewable energy to Reliance Industries’ [crude oil] refineries. Finally, the Economic Times reports that Coal India is “planning to set up two [new] thermal plants” with a total capacity of 2260 megawatts that are likely to come online by 2028.

About 20 energy bosses met energy security and net-zero secretary Grant Shapps yesterday to discuss how to  invest more than £100bn in the UK economy, reports the Guardian. The meeting was convened just days after prime minister Rishi Sunak “ignited a row with green groups” by announcing plans to “max out” the North Sea’s oil and gas reserves, the article notes. However, at the meeting, Shapps reassured the energy firm bosses he was “absolutely committed” to hitting the UK’s legally-binding net-zero carbon targets by 2050, reports the Financial Times. He wants energy companies to invest in renewables including solar, tidal, wind, as well as nuclear, alongside oil and gas, the article continues. Representatives from firms including EDF, SSE and BP were at the meeting, which was dubbed “productive” by David Bunch, chair of Shell UK, reports Sky News. Following the meeting, Shapps said the industry was in agreement about the “immense opportunities ahead” to “accelerate investment into renewables, bring down bills and deliver on net-zero”, it adds. The National quotes Shapps saying: “We need to send the message loud and clear to the likes of Putin that we will never again be held to ransom with energy supply,” adding that the companies at the meeting will be “at the heart” of this effort. Shapps also discussed steps to protect critical energy infrastructure from disruptive protests, notes the Press Association, including discussing the Public Order Act, working with police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. However, the energy bosses also warned the government that the “UK’s difficult economic circumstances and political uncertainty have taken a toll on investor confidence”, reports the Guardian. It quotes one attendee saying: “It’s all dampening investor confidence, and everyone was worried about it. It’s good that the government has heard these concerns. Hopefully this is the beginning of a conversation about how to move forward.” The meeting took place as an attack on the UK’s energy network has been listed as a significant risk to the country’s security for the first time, reports the Guardian. An attack on energy infrastructure with a “significant” impact is now ranked as 5% to 25% likely within a two year period, it adds.

Separately, Shapps is set to approve a report from electricity networks commissioner Nick Winsser, backing a range of proposals designed to tackle the lengthy grid connection delays, reports the Financial Times. The proposals are designed to reduce the connection time from 14 to seven years, it notes. This follows repeated calls for the government to tackle planning and grid connections, given a wind or solar project can take just 18 months to construct, but project timelines exceed a decade due to connection challenges, reports BusinessGreen.

Energy firm Drax has been accused of costing consumers more than £600m by choosing not to run its biomass power plant unit during periods when the price it would have been paid to generate electricity dropped below market prices during the energy crisis, reports the Times. The company chose to burn biomass in three other units – which hold a different type of subsidy contract – that were able to “cash in on high prices”, the article says. Since December 2016, the unit at the firm’s giant power plant has received £1.4bn in subsidies from consumers, notes Bloomberg, which ran the investigation into the company. But during the energy crisis last year, this unit was powered down, meaning the company did not have to return an estimated £639m to consumers, it continues. The power company has been accused of “playing the system”, the Daily Mail reports in an article carried on the front cover of the paper. It highlights that Drax has long drawn criticism over the sustainability of the burning of imported wood pellets as “green” energy. Drax has denied intentionally shutting down the biomass unit to avoid making the payments in favour of reselling its wood pellets, calling the Bloomberg investigation “false, inaccurate, and misleading”, reports the Guardian. The company argued that it had to make responsible hedging decisions last winter to secure energy supplies and support business following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which “created unprecedented challenges to the electricity market due to constrained fuel supplies, leading to an increase in both the demand for biomass and the price of pellets”, reports City AM. The Daily Telegraph notes that there is no suggestion that Drax broke the rules of the “contracts for difference” subsidy scheme. The Daily Mail gives its lead comment slot to climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark, who writes under the headline: “Drax gaming the subsidy system takes the biscuit.”

South Korea and Japan have both reported further deaths as “sweltering” heat across the countries continues, reports the Washington Post. Typhoon Khanun has been “churning through Japan’s southernmost Okinawa prefecture” unleashing powerful rains and winds, leading the government to issue further safety alerts, the article notes. Meanwhile, temperatures in parts of South Korea topped 38C (100F) this week, the Washington Post reports, although it feels hotter due to the humidity. The heat is estimated to have killed at least 22 people across the country, reports Reuters, more than triple the record of seven set during the same period last year according to the National Fire Agency. As of Tuesday, A total of 1,284 people had been reported to be  suffering heat-related illnesses, reports CNN.  

China’s capital Beijing has recorded its heaviest rainfall in “at least 140 years” over the past couple of days, as remnants of Typhoon Doksuri pass through Northern China, the Associated Press reports. According to Sky News, the capital saw over 29 inches (74 cm) of rain between Saturday and Wednesday morning with waters rising to dangerous levels. As reported by the Independent, at least 20 people are dead with 27 others missing. While the economic impacts are still being calculated, the province has evacuated 847,400 people so far according to the Communist Party-backed newspaper People’s Daily. The flooding has filled a residential area twice the size of Paris, affecting nearly 650 hectares of agricultural land as well as causing water shortages and a partial power outage, Reuters writes. Local governments in Beijing, Hebei and Zhouzhou have declared a state of emergency, the outlet adds. 

Meanwhile, the Independent says that China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday rejected reports that China and Saudi Arabia blocked G20 discussions on energy transition. It quotes the ministry saying this is “completely inconsistent with the facts”. Reuters covers the same story, adding that the foreign ministry said the meeting “achieved (a) positive and balanced outcome”. State-backed media China News also reported the ministry’s response, reporting its spokesperson saying: “[S]ome countries introduced geopolitical issues as an obstruction after the meeting failed to adopt a communique, which China regrets.”

Prime minister Rishi Sunak revealed no new details on energy, economy or “heaven forbid, climate” in his visit to Scotland, writes head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth Scotland Mary Church in the Guardian. Instead he “mostly doubled down on climate denial” by reiterating plans to hand out new oil and gas licences, she writes.  On plans to fund carbon capture projects in Scotland, Church says the technology “has a long history of over-promising and under-delivering – longer, in fact, than the time we have to bring down emissions if we want to secure a livable planet”. Sunak’s plan ultimately “serves, and indeed subsidises, only the interests of fossil fuel industry bosses and does nothing to secure our energy future or jobs in the region”, Church continues. Positioning jobs as in opposition to climate is false, she finishes, given the potential for three “green jobs” to be created for every job at risk from a managed phase-out of oil and gas. The North Sea has a history of energy transformation in a short timeframe, she adds: “all it needs is the political backbone to do it”.

New North Sea licences won’t be enough to fix Britain’s “broken” energy system, writes chief city commentator Ben Marlow in the Daily Telegraph. “The suggestion that the North Sea is the magic solution is as bogus as the idea that Rishi Sunak is on the side of motorists with his cynical attempt to capitalise on the Uxbridge by-election result by rushing out a series of half-baked pledges to do away with low-traffic neighbourhoods and 20mph speed limits,” the article continues. Marlow writes: “Net-zero scepticism is clearly on the rise, and rightly so.” However, he says local concerns about an “overzealous scheme designed to improve air quality” does not mean the whole country wants to see the “environment trashed”. New licences won’t ease energy bills in the short term, Marlow continues, saying it takes 5-10 years for them to come online. [It takes an average of 28 years for an exploration licence to lead to oil and gas production, according to a factcheck from Carbon Brief.] Moreover, he says, CCS is a “red herring”. The answer to Britain’s energy crisis can only come from “real home-grown energy backed up by a proper-functioning grid”, the article continues. “Britain’s energy system is broken and much of the blame lies with a government that now wants us to believe it has all the answers. The public is being gaslighted,” Marlow concludes. 

The Times gives over its “Thunderer” column to emeritus Prof Peter Dobson, without noting that he is a member of the academic advisory council for the climate sceptic lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Dobson says that Britain’s “green and pleasant land” is “no place for solar”. He says that “more and more fields are being covered with solar panels”. [Solar currently covers just 0.1% of land in the UK, according to analysis by Carbon Brief.] He concludes by calling for a “moratorium on all solar farm installations”. Finally, columnist Madeline Grant in the Daily Telegraph writes under the headline: “Net-zero hardliners don’t know their history.”

In his latest level-headed contribution to the debate, Sunday Telegraph editor Alistair Heath writes in the Daily Telegraph that Britain is now an “elite dictatorship” where opinions on “on cars, crime and wokery” are ignored by the government. The country’s “deranged war on cars” and “looming ban on gas boilers” are evidence of an anti-democratic Britain, he writes.

An editorial in the Sun argues that “put[ting] the brakes” on net-zero could put Sunak “back on the road to election victory”. It says Britain “simply isn’t ready to outlaw the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030”. It says energy security and net-zero secretary Grant Shapp “forced to admit the National Grid is hopelessly underpowered for the challenge of charging up millions more electric vehicles”. [The National Grid Electricity System Operator describes the idea that the network it runs will be unable to handle the shift to EVs as a “myth”.]

In a separate piece in the Sun, Conservative former energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg gives his support to the newspaper’s “Give Us A Brake” campaign, arguing it is a way to help the Conservatives win the next election. For years, motorists have been given “the fuzzy end of the lollipop”, Rees-Mogg writes. “Poor road conditions, potholes, delays, high taxation and a tiresome moralising that implied motoring is somehow wrong have been the lot of drivers for the past 25 years,” he continues. [Fuel duty has been frozen or cut in the UK since 2010 – a real-terms tax cut of more than 37% that has cost the exchequer more than £80bn, at the same time as public transport fares have increased faster than inflation.

A new study finds that northern Europe is “substantially warmer” today than it was during the Medieval period, contrary to the findings of past research. “Reconstructions of past temperatures often portray the extended warm period known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly (AD 950–1250) as warmer than the current period,” according to a research briefing on the new paper. Using 1,170 years of tree-ring records, the authors reconcile inconsistencies between reconstructions and model simulations. They “call for the construction of more such millennia-long records to further improve our understanding and reduce uncertainties around historical and future climate change at inter-regional and eventually global scales”.