The latest analysis from scientists at World Weather Attribution finds that climate change doubled the chances of the extreme rainfall that drove flooding in central Europe last week. The Guardian is among publications reporting on the analysis, noting that it finds that the rains were also made at least 7% stronger by climate change. It reports: “Storm Boris stalled over central Europe in mid-September and unleashed record-breaking amounts of rain upon Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The heavy rains turned calm streams into wild rivers, triggering floods that wrecked homes and killed two dozen people.” The newspaper quotes Prof Bogdan Chojnicki, a climate scientist at Poznań University of Life Sciences in Poland, who says: “The trend is clear. If humans keep filling the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions, the situation will be more severe.” BBC News leads its coverage with a warning from Dr Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London and leader of the WWA, who says: “This is definitely what we will see much more of in the future.” The broadcaster adds that, according to the analysis, the kind of rainfall seen during Storm Boris is “thankfully still rare – expected to occur about once every 100-300 years in today’s climate, which has warmed by about 1.3C due to greenhouse gas emissions”. However, it adds: “But if warming reaches 2C, similar episodes will become an extra 5% more intense and 50% more frequent.” In its coverage, the New York Times notes that Storm Boris “was only one of many flooding events that have wreaked havoc across the world in recent months”, adding: “Extreme rainfall that led to flooding and landslides has killed thousands across four continents: a downpour that caused a landslide in India that killed more than 230 people was 10% heavier because of climate change; flooding in West and Central Africa caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.” The newspaper adds that, according to the WWA scientists, adaptation measures may have “helped lower death tolls in Europe”, “especially when compared with intense regional floods in 1997 and 2002 when hundreds died”. The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg are among other publications covering the analysis.

Australia has approved the expansion of three coal mines, “sparking criticism of prime minister Anthony Albanese’s administration and its efforts to keep emissions in check”, Bloomberg says. All three mines are in New South Sales, with one, Narrabri, granted permission to operate until 2044 and another, Mount Pleasant, greenlit until 2048, Bloomberg says. It adds: “The [coal extracted from the] three mines will emit about 1.4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide over their lifetime, according to the Australia Institute, about three times national annual emissions. They take the total number of coal projects approved by Albanese’s government to seven.” The Guardian reports that climate experts have described the decision as “reckless” and the “opposite of climate action”. It says: “The approvals come after conservationists, independent MPs and senators have been negotiating with the government over its delayed reforms to environment laws, including calls for the climate impacts of projects to be considered as part of federal assessments.” The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, who approved the mines, said the government had to make decisions “in accordance with the facts and the national environment law” and that the emissions from the mines would be considered under the government’s safeguard mechanism designed to cap and reduce emissions from major polluting sites, the Guardian reports. It quotes Gavan McFadzean, the climate program manager at Australian Conservation Foundation, who says: “This decision is the opposite of climate action…It is grossly irresponsible to be approving coalmines when global scientists and the International Energy Agency have repeated calls for no new coal and gas projects if we have any chance of having a safe climate…The Albanese government came to office promising to be champions for climate action and it continues to disappoint.” In rather skewed coverage of the decision, the Australian says it will “extend employment opportunities in a region expected to be up-ended by Australia’s energy transition”.

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports on new data showing “large-scale renewable energy investment and construction in Australia is rebounding this year after a slump, but will need to accelerate to reach the pace needed to meet the Albanese government’s goal for 2030”.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer set out his government’s priorities at a speech at the annual Labour party conference on Tuesday, where he confirmed that GB Energy, the country’s new national energy firm, will be headquartered in Aberdeen, the Financial Times reports. The decision to base the company in Aberdeen reflects that it is “the heart of Scotland’s oil and gas sector” and thus central to the energy transition, the FT says. The firm is “chaired by former Siemens UK chief executive Juergen Maier” and “aims to co-invest in new low-carbon technologies, accelerate wind, solar and nuclear power, and scale up local energy projects”. “With £8.3bn to deploy over five years, it hopes to create 650,000 jobs,” it adds. The Press Association says that the Scottish government welcomed the news, but urged Starmer “to increase the pace of the set-up of the agency”. In frontpage coverage of Starmer’s speech, the Times reports that Starmer also said he would take a more “interventionist” approach to climate change than the Conservatives. Elsewhere, the Press Association reports that Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has called for action to improve the nation’s “climate resilience” ahead of a visit to a river restoration project. The Daily Mail reports on claims from the leader of the workers union GMB, Gary Smith, that Labour’s pledge to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 will “cost up to one million jobs, decimate working communities and push up bills for the poorest”. [Smith has a record of being highly critical of actions to tackle climate change.]

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi told “thousands of Indian-Americans” gathered in New York that India has “no role in causing destruction” to the world and that the country’s carbon emissions are “almost negligible”, NDTV reports. According to the outlet, Modi said that while India “represents about 17% of the world’s population..our contribution to emission[s] is about only [4%]”, and while it could “have opted for a carbon fuel-driven growth”, it has chosen not to do so. The prime minister “did not mention the source of th[is] data”, according to Scroll.in. [Carbon Brief analysis shows India is the seventh-largest contributor to current climate change, having contributed around 3% of historical emissions from fossil fuels and land use change.] Separately, India’s climate minister Bhupender Yadav called for an “exact definition of climate finance”, pointing out that the “$100bn promised earlier has become outdated” and India “will continue to be the voice of the Global South” at COP29, News18 reports. According to the story, Yadav maintained that India’s “[net-zero by] 2070 vision also includes mention of [r]ational utilisation of fossil fuel resources” and “global climate action cannot be achieved until inequalities persist between developed and developing countries in terms of the available technology and finance”. 

In energy news, a new Ember report estimates that India’s “annual coal mine emissions could exceed 1.6m tonnes of methane per year by 2029, more than double compared to 2019 levels”, Carbon Copy reports, “pos[ing] a considerable risk for the country’s domestic emissions reduction plans [with a] profound short-term warming impact”. However, it adds that if this coal mine methane “is captured and utilised as electricity, offsetting the use of imported gas, it could save up to $980m over the next five years”. At the same time, Economic Times reports that India’s coal imports rose by over 40% in July. Reuters, meanwhile, quotes federal mines ministry officials stating that state-run Coal India is “scouting for critical minerals in Argentina and is in talks with Chile for lithium”. 

Elsewhere, a new Climate Analytics report states that India’s wind and solar power generation “needs to grow five to six times by 2030 to align” with preventing warming exceeding 1.5C, the Hindustan Times writes. It adds that “international support will be key in supporting the energy transition with climate finance”. India’s Central Electricity Authority has approved “two large-scale” pumped hydro storage projects with a combined 2,500 megawatt (MW) capacity in the western state of Maharashtra, Outlook reports, the authority setting its sights on “a target of clearing 15 hydro storage projects totalling 25,500MW by 2025”.

In extreme weather news, the months of June, July, and August 2024 were “India’s second-hottest season since 1970” due to human-induced climate change, the Hindu writes, reporting on a new Climate Central study. It adds that over “20.5 million people experienced high temperatures exceptionally influenced by climate change for at least 60 days in the past three months, making India the Southern Asian country with the most people exposed to temperatures driven by climate change”. A survey by real estate investment firm CBRE, at the same time, estimates that “nearly 50% of all India’s public infra[structure] is vulnerable to climate change [and] urbanisation”, Fortune India reports. 

In other India news, a new DeutscheWelle documentary looks at a farming collective in the flood-ravaged district of Wayanad, Kerala that is mitigating climate impacts by “collecting and sharing regional-specific weather data”. While the Economic Times carries a comment titled “Can Indian electric two-wheelers challenge China’s dominance?”, the Hindustan Times features an opinion piece by Zerin Osho at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, arguing that while “India’s energy interests [in the Arctic] are clear”, the “loss of Arctic sea-ice impacts the monsoons that are critical for [India’s] agriculture”. 

Chinese scientists have invented “an energy generator that harnesses the transpiration of plants to create electricity, which could transform almost all leaves on Earth into a sustainable and continuous energy source”, according to a recent study on Nature Water covered by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). The report says that the generator has advantages over traditional generators, such as costing less, and can function “as a power source for scattered areas, such as farmland, without requiring large-scale infrastructure”. An analysis by business news outlet Caixin says that a combination of factors, including “economic slowdown” and “extreme weather events”, is “driving down” China’s consumption of crude oil and “reducing its reliance on fossil fuels”. 

Meanwhile, China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has issued a notice on the “basic rules for electricity market registration”, specifying four “basic conditions” for the registration of new energy storage companies, industry news outlet BJX News reports. The Communist Party-backed newspaper People’s Daily quotes Li Xuhong, deputy director of the Beijing National Accounting Institute, saying that China’s “green transformation” requires “significant contributions from green finance”. Dianlian Xinmei, an industry outlet, publishes an article by Gao Ciwei, a professor at the School of Electrical Engineering of Southeast University, about establishing a “unified” electricity market in China. Gao says that the “key concept” remains “restoring the commodity nature of electric energy”.

Elsewhere, local media Beijing Daily quotes Zheng Chunhua, director of the German Research Center of Tongji University, saying that Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, has “yielded positive results” during his visit to Europe to discuss planned EU tariffs on Chinese EVs. An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times argues that it is “difficult” for China alone to deal with “increasingly severe global climate issues”, adding that “the west must change both its mind-set and actions” and stop “backpedalling on climate matters”. The Daily Telegraph has a column by assistant editor Jeremy Warner saying that Europe should be “welcoming China’s electric car makers, not sanctioning them”.

For African Arguments, Karabo Mokgonyana, a renewable energy campaigner at the Kenyan thinktank Power Shift Africa says that debt cancellation is an “urgent and critical” measure to tackle climate change. She says: “High-polluting countries have long delayed their commitments to address the environmental damage they have inflicted on the Global South. It is essential they make amends through comprehensive reparations. An ambitious new climate finance goal will be a major part of that. But international creditors, financial institutions, and historic polluters must also directly address the debt crisis, which is a legacy of both colonialism and more recent shocks such as the 2008 financial crisis, Covid-19 pandemic, and Russia-Ukraine war. One form of reparations besides monetary compensation that African negotiators should pursue is debt cancellation. This could focus firstly on wiping international debts accrued historically with institutions like the IMF and World Bank and bilateral country debt, as a means to compensate for the climate impacts caused by global north polluters.”

Elsewhere, former environment minister for Gabon Prof Lee White has an article in Fortune on the importance of conserving the vast Congo Basin rainforest. He says: “We must urgently develop a generation of African scientists able to study, document, monitor, and explain the complex ecological processes that have structured the vital Congo Basin ecosystem, as well as the threats posed by modern human activities to its very existence.”

In South Africa’s Mail and Guardian, Dr Brian Mantlana, the manager of the holistic climate change impact area in the smart places cluster at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and Steve Nicholls, head of mitigation at South Africa’s Presidential Climate Commission, write that the nation must ensure a “fair and transparent” process when preparing its next UN climate pledge, known as its “nationally determined contribution” (NDC). They say: “The NDC preparation process must balance prevailing competing stakeholder interests; seek societal legitimacy and ownership; ensure diversity in engagements and gather political support – and this must be done in the sterilising presence of public scrutiny.”

Many UK newspapers have editorials reacting to Starmer’s speech (see above), which briefly touched on energy and climate change. According to a Guardian editorial, Starmer centred economic growth in his speech, saying “green energy means building pylons”. It adds: “A new social contract is needed to avoid growth coming at the expense of the environment, or all of its proceeds going to the rich.” An editorial in the Times also highlights Starmer’s warning that some people will live near new pylons. An editorial in the Daily Telegraph says Starmer’s speech indicated the government will increase its “influence on all walks of life”. An editorial in the Sun described GB Energy as “ruinous folly”. Separately, the Daily Telegraph has another piece criticising energy secretary Ed Miliband, saying he is “poised to wreck Britain”. Conversely, Politico has an article on how Miliband is “Britain’s minister for good vibes”, saying: “Miliband is on his 29th party conference – and has become something of a cult figure for Labour’s younger, green-minded members. RenewableUK, the industry association, was even offering delegates free cappuccinos with Miliband’s face on them.”  

Elsewhere, Financial Times associate editor Pilita Clark has a column on how the UK’s grid battery storage record is “maddening”. She says: “Officials have spent years encouraging, though not subsidising, investors to build these facilities – rows of containers filled with racks of batteries that can power thousands of homes. But by 2023, industry data showed that even when batteries were cheaper than gas, they were being underused or “skipped over” as much as 90% of the time. Investors say the problem has continued this year, as the FT reported last week.”

A new perspective paper explores the “new paradigms and challenges” for scientists researching extreme weather. The authors discuss “the importance of understanding the physical basis of extreme events and its linkages to climate impacts” and highlight the “need for collaboration across multiple disciplines”. The authors also cover the “challenge of big climate data analysis and the application of novel statistical methods, such as machine learning”. The paper concludes by “stressing the importance of meaningful scientific engagement, and removing barriers to inclusivity and collaboration in climate research”.

Using carbon sequestration methods on agricultural land could have a similar cumulative mitigation potential to afforestation by 2050, a new study suggests, with most of it located in the global south. Using an economic land-use model, the researchers focus on the sequestration options of silvopasture, biochar application and improved cropland and pasture management. Worldwide use of these options could provide producers with additional revenues of up to $375bn and “allow achievement of net-zero emissions in the agriculture, forestry and other land-use sectors by 2050”, the paper says. This would, the researchers say, “decrease economy-wide mitigation costs and increase gross domestic product (+0.6%) by the mid-century in 1.5C no-overshoot climate stabilisation scenarios compared with mitigation scenarios that do not consider these options”.