Climate talks in Bonn, Germany, are heading into their final day today, BBC News reports, with “rich nations accused of betraying the developing world”. It explains: “Poorer countries say that at COP26 they were promised that their key demand on loss and damage would be honoured this year. They believed that a new finance facility to pay for the impacts of climate change that they can’t adapt to, would be set up. But in Bonn, they say the issue has been sidelined by the US and Europe.” The broadcaster concludes: “With one day of talking left, there is some hope that a compromise can be found to put loss and damage on the agenda for the COP[27] in Egypt.” Climate Home News also reports from the talks, covering discussions on a “work programme” established at COP26 to “urgently” accelerate emissions cuts: “China is opposing any references to ‘major emitters’ in discussions about how to scale-up carbon cutting efforts this decade at interim climate talks in Bonn, Germany.” The outlet adds: “While the language of ‘major emitter’ is used in forums such as the G20, to which China is a member, Beijing argues it has no meaning in the formal UN climate process. Using the term would create a new categorisation of countries, which isn’t part of the Paris Agreement, it says.” The publication notes that even the timeline of the work programme is contentious, with some saying it should end next year and others that it should continue until 2030. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans has a Twitter thread on the key areas of discussion in Bonn.

Central parts of the US were affected by “dangerously high temperatures” again yesterday, Reuters reports, adding that millions of Americans “were under heat advisories” and advised to stay indoors. The newswire quotes the National Weather Service warning saying: “Extreme heat and humidity will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.” The Independent says 100 million Americans had been advised to stay indoors. It adds: “Heatwaves are expected to get more common and more intense over the coming decades as the planet warms due to the climate crisis.” Another article for the Independent covers comments from a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists regarding the threat of wildfires, droughts and heatwaves in the summer months: “Because of climate change, the months of May through October amount to danger season in the US and around the world.” The Independent also reports that Odessa, a city in the state of Texas, declared a disaster after losing its water supply during the heatwave. Reuters reports that extreme heat and humidity “killed thousands of cattle in Kansas in recent days, the state said”.

Elsewhere in the US, Reuters reports on recent floods, the “first natural disaster to force a summertime closure of Yellowstone National Park in 30 years”. The New York Times calls the floods “a sign of crises to come” and reports: “It is difficult to directly connect the damage in Yellowstone to a rapidly warming climate – rivers have flooded for millenniums – but scientists are raising the alarm that in the coming years destruction related to climate change will reach nearly all 423 national parks, which are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures. The litany of threats read like a biblical reckoning: fire and flood, melting ice sheets, rising seas and heatwaves.” Associated Press reports: “Oregon health officials say the impacts of climate change, including more devastating wildfires, heatwaves, drought and poor air quality, are fuelling ‘climate anxiety’ among young people.”

In other news of extreme weather events around the world, Associated Press reports that six people have died and 200,000 have been evacuated in China, following heavy rain, landslides and flooding. The outlet says: “China regularly experiences seasonal rains and flooding during the summer, most frequently in central and southern areas.” It adds that 17 people died last week in “rain-related disasters” in China. A feature from Nikkei Asia via the Financial Times is titled: “Japan battles flooding amid deepening climate crisis.” The piece says: “An island nation, Japan has lived with the risk of floods for centuries, but recently the rushing waters have become more frequent and destructive…The effects of global warming – such as damage from heavy rainfall, larger typhoons and rising sea levels – are becoming increasingly evident in Japan and the world over. The incidence of short-duration heavy rainfall – storms that drop more than 50mm of water in an hour – in Japan has increased by 40% in the past 30 years. The number of days with rainfall of 100mm and heavy rainfall of 200mm or more has also increased.” The Daily Telegraph reports that Singapore is facing “rocket[ing]” cases of dengue fever “as experts blame climate change for high mosquito numbers”.

In Australia, a comment piece for the Guardian describes the aftermath of flooding in parts of the country under the headline: “Lismore’s residents are living in limbo on the frontlines of the climate emergency.” In his “Temperature Check” column, Guardian environment reporter Graham Readfearn says recent reporting in other Australian media over a “bumper snow season” has “skate[d] over facts”

On the other side of the world, Reuters reports that France is “fight[ing] forest fires as early heatwave spreads” and another Reuters article says: “Spain’s heatwave taking a toll on young birds.” The Independent reports that Spain “‘arrests protesting climate scientists’ amid earliest summer heatwave in history”. State-run newspaper China Daily reports: “Unusually high temperatures recorded in Spain on Monday and forecast to reach into southern France later in the week are being blamed on global warming.” The Guardian reports: “How a severe drought in Africa caused whitethroat population to drop.” It says a weather event in 1968 that killed millions of the birds “was an early indication that world’s climate was changing”. Bloomberg says UK temperatures may hit 34C this week, “a once-rare level [for June] that’s becoming more common on the back of global warming”. Sky News reports: “Dr Mark McCarthy, the head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, warned climate change could be the reason behind the high temperatures.”

Gas prices in the UK and the rest of Europe “surged for a second consecutive day yesterday as Russia said it was further curtailing supplies to the continent”, the Times reports. It continues: “Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled gas group, said it was limiting volumes through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, while Eni, of Italy, said that its supplies from Russia also had been reduced.” Gas prices in the UK rose by 28% on Tuesday and another 30% yesterday, the paper says. Associated Press reports that deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany would be cut Thursday again, bringing the overall reduction through the undersea pipeline to 60%, citing a statement by Russia’s Gazprom on Twitter. It quotes German vice chancellor Robert Habeck saying that Gazprom’s initial move “appeared to be political rather than a result of technical problems”. The newswire quotes him saying the new developments “clearly show the Russian side’s explanation is simply an excuse…Obviously, the strategy is to unsettle people and push up prices”. BBC News reports: “Germany has accused Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom of attempting to push up energy prices by sharply reducing supplies.” The broadcaster reports: “Habeck said Russia’s actions showed European countries needed to end their dependency on fossil fuels urgently”. The Financial Times coverage reports: “The EU and the UK have moved to reduce their reliance on Russian gas since the invasion, but are still reliant on pipeline exports from Gazprom for about a fifth of all supplies, according to ICIS, a consultancy.” Politico, Bloomberg and Reuters also have the story, with a second Reuters article headlined: “German energy regulator says Gazprom cuts could spell trouble in winter.” The i newspaper says experts “warn of soaring UK price rises and blackouts in winter if Russia cuts gas supplies further”. The Financial Times reports: “Israel and Egypt to boost gas deliveries to EU.” It adds: “New energy deal signed in Cairo as Brussels aims to reduce dependence on Russia.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Russia’s oil and gas revenue has risen in May even as exports fall, due to higher prices, according to new analysis from the International Energy Agency. Bloomberg also covers the IEA analysis, saying it found Russia’s fossil fuel export earnings rose 11% month-on-month in May, despite volumes falling by 3%.

The Basel Committee of banking regulators from the US, Europe, Japan, China and elsewhere, has issued guidance for banks on how to assess climate change impacts, Reuters reports. It says: “International banks like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and HSBC will be expected to examine whether they are quantifying risks from climate change properly despite sometimes patchy data and time horizons that go well beyond traditional risk assessments and remuneration packages.” The Financial Times reports the guidelines under the headline: “Global banking regulator urges closer links between pay and climate risks.” It says the pay proposal has been added to the final version of the Basel Committee climate framework, which has been in the works since 2020.

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that bank groups have been “accused of exploiting loopholes and ‘greenwashing’ in climate pledge”. The Financial Times reports: “BlackRock is launching an infrastructure investment programme focused on energy security and helping polluting companies to become greener as the world’s largest money manager adjusts to new demands on climate change.” Analysis from Reuters says: “Three competing plans to curb companies from exaggerating their green credentials could lead to more frustration and costs for businesses, especially starting next year.” In related comment, the New York Times has a piece titled: “Investors deserve to know the climate risks their assets face.” And a comment from Bloomberg columnist David Fickling runs under the headline: “It’s not ESG driving big oil away from its biggest reserves.”

A deal on climate policies has been reached among a majority of lawmakers in the European Parliament, Reuters reports, adding that there will be a vote next week. The newswire explains: “The parliament dealt a blow to EU climate policies last week, when it rejected an agreement on the bloc’s carbon market amid disputes over how ambitious Europe’s biggest emissions-cutting policy should be.” It says the new compromise deal between groups representing a majority of MEPs “would see parliament support a 63% cut in emissions covered by the EU carbon market by 2030 – versus the 61% proposed by the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, and the 67% supported in an early parliament deal.” Bloomberg says the deal “would accelerate the phaseout of free carbon permits and slightly speed up emissions cuts”, relative to the commission proposal. It says a vote on the compromise will take place on 22 June, adding: “The vote will define the parliament’s position for talks with member states on the final shape of the deepest to date overhaul of the EU Emissions Trading System.” Politico says of the deal in parliament: “One of the major sticking points that collapsed the vote in Parliament was the date when certain industries would stop receiving free pollution allowances under the ETS. Under the deal announced Wednesday, the phaseout will begin in 2027 and end in 2032.” In a comment for Energy Monitor, freelance journalist Anna Gumbau writes under the headline: “This is the EU Parliament’s last chance to raise carbon market ambition.”

Chinese-listed companies are “lagging behind their regional and global counterparts in setting net-zero emission targets”, reports South China Morning Post, adding that this shows a “lack of urgency” almost two years after the country pledged to achieve carbon neutrality status by 2060. The outlet notes that “only 11 out of 265 companies” have set net-zero targets and deadlines, according to a study by four thinktanks including NewClimate Institute and Oxford Net-Zero. The rate compares with “20% among firms in East Asia, 36% in North America and 58% in Europe”, the outlet says, citing figures from the study.

Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned oil and gas firm CNOOC has “completed the country’s first offshore carbon capture and storage project” designed to “permanently bury carbon dioxide in the seabed”, Reuters writes, citing state media reports on Wednesday. CNOOC said it would eventually “sequester a total of 1.46m tonnes of CO2 in 800-metre deep seabed reservoirs”, the newswire notes. It adds that the stored CO2 was the “equivalent of planting 14m trees or taking 1m cars off the road”, according to the company.

Separately, there is continued coverage of China’s recently published adaptation plan from the South China Morning Post and Xinhua. The South China Morning Post says that compared to the 2013 strategy, the new plan “highlights more climate-change monitoring, early warning and risk management”, citing the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE). The plan also “formulates adaptive measures by considering both natural ecosystems and economic and social systems, and emphasises regional collaboration and support from the financial and technological sectors”, the outlet adds. The state news agency Xinhua carries a feature on the recently-released plan titled: “China prioritises mitigation, adaptation in addressing climate change.”.

Finally, another Reuters article reports that China’s economy “showed signs of recovery” in May, but consumption was still “weak”. The newswire says that the mining sector “led the way with annual output up 7.0%” in May, adding that the manufacturing industry “eked out a meagre 0.1% growth”, which the article says was mostly “driven by the production of new energy vehicles which surged 108.3% year-on-year”.

Mining giant BHP has failed to find a buyer for its thermal coal unit in Australia, New South Wales Energy Coal, Reuters reports, adding that the firm instead plans to “run the operation for another eight years before shutting it down”. Bloomberg says BHP has “scrap[ped] a plan to exit from thermal coal and instead aim to shutter its final mine by mid-2030 after prices surged, and with investor attitudes shifting on the sale of fossil fuel assets”. It adds: “Pressure in recent years from ESG-focused investors to quickly sell coal assets has been replaced by calls on major commodity producers to focus on the responsible – and accelerated – closure of the operations.” The Financial Times reports: “BHP has pulled out of attempts to sell one of Australia’s largest thermal coal mines, choosing to run down the asset over the next eight years as it works to transition away from mining fossil fuels.” The Guardian says of the news: “Environmentalists welcome news but urge company to stop mining at Mt Arthur when permit expires in four years.”

In other news from Australia, Politico reports that the new Labor government has officially sent a higher climate pledge to the UN, of cutting emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. Reuters also has the story. Another Reuters article reports the comments of Australian foreign minister Penny Wong during a trip to the Solomon Islands: “I think we do have some ground to make up and we want to demonstrate we bring stronger and more ambitious commitments on climate because we actually think it matters.” The Guardian reports: “Climate groups blast minister’s support of new Australian gas projects as ‘fact-free spin’.”

The German cabinet has approved plans that will require states to allocate a minimum amount of land to onshore wind, Reuters reports: “The legislation aims for 2% of land in Germany to be set aside for wind farms by 2032, up from 0.8% now, with an interim target of 1.4% in 2026.” Der Tagesspiegel notes that Germany wants 80% of electricity to come from renewables by 2030. It explains that larger areas such as Brandenburg or North Rhine-Westphalia would have to allocate 2% of their space to wind turbines under the plans, while city-states such as Berlin and Hamburg would have a 0.5% target. Associated Press also has the story. Meanwhile, “Germany’s many thousands of solar panels set a new production record on Wednesday just as a heatwave is blanketing much of the continent”, reports Bloomberg. It details that about 10% of Germany’s electricity consumption is met by solar generation.

Separately, N-tv reports that Angola wants to become Germany’s first supplier of green hydrogen from renewables, noting that the state energy company Sonangol, together with the German companies Gauff Engineering and Conjuncta, signed a declaration of intent for the construction of a corresponding factory in Angola. The news quotes Angolan minister for mineral resources, Diamantino Pedro de Azevedo saying he “is counting on green ammonia being able to be exported from 2024”.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson is “drawing up plans to insulate hundreds of thousands more homes before winter to help shield people from the rising cost of living”, the Times reports. It says Johnson “has told ministers to divert more than £1bn from existing schemes to focus on insulating poorer households”. The paper reports: “Ministers could divert money from the £1bn Public Sector Decarbonisation scheme, which focuses on making schools, hospitals and other public buildings more energy efficient. No 10 also considered using money from the £450m boiler upgrade scheme that subsidises heat pumps. Last month it pulled all communications surrounding the launch of the scheme, but ministers were advised that it was too late to divert the funds.” The paper notes that the government has “already delayed” an extension to the Energy Company Obligation scheme, which ended in March despite a consultation last year on extending it to 2026, after ministers failed to table the necessary legislation. (The 2019 Conservative manifesto pledged to spend £9bn on energy efficiency, only a fraction of which has been committed so far.)

In other UK news, the Times reports: “The Queen is in line for a bigger payout from the Treasury after profits at her property empire rebounded last year…The improvement was driven by the continued clamour to build wind farms on the estate’s seabeds.” Separately, the Financial Times reports: “North Sea producers warn windfall tax has forced rethink of UK projects.”

The world is “using more more fossil fuels than ever as the transition to green energy stalls”, BBC News reports, citing the findings of the Renewables 2022 Global Status Report published by REN21. The broadcaster quotes REN21 executive director Rana Adib saying the energy transition is “stagnating…And since the energy demand is rising, this actually means that we are consuming more fossil fuels than ever.” It adds, incorrectly, that renewable energy made up 10% of global electricity production last year (the correct figure from the report is 28%, with 10% being the figure supplied by wind and solar alone). Deutsche Welle also covers the REN21 report under the headline: “World misses the mark on green Covid recovery.” It says: “Even with record growth in renewable energy last year, fossil fuels continue to dominate the world’s energy use, with the overall share in global energy consumption rising just under eight percentage points over the last decade.” (This is also incorrect. The eight percentage-point increase in renewable energy share only relates to the power sector.) The Hindustan Times picks out details from the REN21 report: “India added around 15.4 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity in 2021, the third highest after China (136 GW) and the United States (43 GW), according to a global status report released on Wednesday.”

In a comment for the Daily Telegraph, former commander in UK and Nato CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] forces, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, writes that the UK “need[s] to normalise nuclear power”. He continues: “The elevated military threat [around Russia], as well as a global need for greener energy, which now even prominent environmentalists recognise is most likely to come from nuclear, demand that we focus our complete attention on the nuclear conundrum.” He adds: “In order to realise the planet-saving opportunities nuclear power can provide, we must develop a comprehensive resilience structure across the UK and internationally.” A New York Times feature says nuclear is “back on the table for a green future”.

In another comment for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath writes under the headline: “Britain is in ruins thanks to the failed dogmas of our permanent Leftist elite.” (The Conservative Party has been in government for 30 of the last 43 years, including since 2010.) Heath says, among other complaints, that: “Command and control environmentalism pervades all policy, and price controls are back.”

Writing for Carnegie Europe, senior scholar Olivia Lazard explains that “one of Russia’s aims in Ukraine is gaining access to vital resources the EU needs to deliver on its climate agenda”. She continues: “Ukraine had struck a strategic partnership on raw materials with the EU in July 2021 to develop and diversify supply chains for critical materials…That partnership was designed to support the EU’s decarbonisation and deepen ties between the EU and Ukraine. Since a number of Ukraine’s minerals are located in the eastern part of the country, which Russia now occupies, the future of the partnership is unclear.” Lazard concludes: “If Europe is to meet the challenges of a world where actors instrumentalise instability and weaponise supply chains and decarbonisation-crucial deposits to redesign the global balance of power [as she argues Russia is attempting to do with its invasion of Ukraine], all at a time of climate and ecological breakdown, it must change its outlook on transitions.”

A new study suggests that dry days are expected to increase over the “entire north-east Brazil territory” – a region considered “strongly vulnerable to extreme rainfall events due to climate change”. Using 12 climate models, the researchers show increases in dry days by up to 15% over the region by the end of the century. Heavy rainfall days “will be more frequent in the future”, the authors say, which means that “it might either rain too much within a short range of time or the water scarcity will be longer-lasting in the future”.