The UK should commit internationally to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions to 81% below 1990 levels by 2035, the government’s independent climate adviser the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has recommended, according to the Press Association. The newswire adds: “In a letter to energy secretary Ed Miliband, the independent advisory committee said the target is ‘ambitious, deliverable and consistent’ with the emission reductions required for the country to meet its own legally binding cap on the amount of carbon it can emit between 2033 to 2037 [under the sixth carbon budget].” The recommendation is in line with the UK’s existing domestic target, for a 78% cut by 2035, including international aviation and shipping, says the Financial Times. Countries are due to submit new climate plans known as “nationally determined contributions” for the period up to 2035 by February 2025, it explains. The CCC has responded to a request from Miliband for guidance on the country’s NDC by stating that an 81% reduction in emissions, excluding shipping and aviation, would be a “fair and ambitious contribution to the Paris Agreement”. The article adds that the new Labour government “is under pressure to rebuild the UK’s reputation as a global leader on climate change and diplomacy after the previous administration’s rollback on net-zero policies weakened its global standing in this area…The CCC warned in July that the UK was off track to achieve its 2030 target to cut emissions by 68% compared with 1990, with only a third of the reductions required covered by credible plans.” The Guardian says that climate campaigners have urged the government to go further and said that the advised target should be “a floor, not a ceiling”. In its coverage, the Daily Telegraph focuses on CCC advice to reduce meat consumption in order to cut emissions from agriculture.

Separately, the Guardian reports that a high court challenge against the ineffectiveness of the UK government’s third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) has been denied. The claimants had called for a “new, robust and comprehensive adaptation programme that better protects people and communities from the challenges arising from global heating”, the newspaper says.

Meanwhile, in an “exclusive” story, the Scotsman reports that Scottish National Party ministers have been accused of trying to “cover up” a lack of progress on a “key climate target”. It says the Scottish government pledged 11% of heating demand would come from low-carbon sources, such as heat pumps, by 2020 – but stopped releasing data on renewable heat after 2020 figures showed that only 6.1% of heat demand came from such sources. Separately, the Scottish Sun reports that Juergen Maier, the new head of the UK government’s flagship, publicly owned Great British Energy company will be based in England, despite prime minister Keir Starmer’s “boasts about the firm being headquartered in Scotland”.

In more UK news, Rick Springman, a senior executive at mini-nuclear reactor developer Holtec International, tells the Daily Telegraph that the UK’s plans to build nuclear power risk being derailed by planning rules that make it “impossible to build stuff”. Another Daily Telegraph article reports on “the village at the front line of Miliband’s march on the countryside”. Elsewhere, the Daily Mail has an article about opposition to a string of proposed pumped hydro storage projects in Scotland that it says critics have dubbed “the Loch Ness monstrosity”. The Daily Telegraph also reports that, following a surge in installations, British households made a record £31m from rooftop solar panels by exporting power back to the grid. Finally, the Times reports on plans to remove around 1.5m of the country’s 7.2m lampposts “to save money and reduce carbon emissions”.

Tropical Storm Trami in the Philippines has left nearly 130 people dead or missing, with many areas still isolated and people in need of rescue, according to the Associated Press. President Ferdinand Marcos said the unusually large volume of rain, including in some areas that saw one to two months’ worth of rainfall in just 24 hours, overwhelmed flood controls, the article says. Marcos pledged that his administration would aim to start work on a major flood control project to meet the unprecedented threats posed by climate change, it adds. Mongabay notes that the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources described the storm as underscoring “the links between climate change and extreme weather, affecting our communities and ecosystems”, and Marcos himself also explicitly linked the storm to climate change.

In Brazil, wildfires have burned an area the size of Switzerland, creating “a level of destruction that will take decades to recover, if it ever does”, the Associated Press reports. The article adds that, with climate change helping to create very dry conditions, officials suspect that criminals seeking to clear forest are “using climate change to their advantage”. In Ecuador, daily power cuts have increased in number due to a severe drought that is lowering water levels for key hydropower plants, the Associated Press says. A New York Times article explores recent flooding around the Alau dam in northeastern Nigeria. The article explains: “After the disaster, government officials blamed God, climate change and the poorest people of Maiduguri, who they said had put themselves in harm’s way.” It notes that, in fact, the dam was known to be at risk before it collapsed. Another New York Times article covers research that suggests human bodies may be “more vulnerable to rising temperatures than scientists had previously believed”.

Finally, a Reuters “special report” explores how the rapid retreat of glaciers in Iceland could drive a surge in volcanic eruptions as magma builds under the island nation. It also considers how “the same might occur at ice-covered volcanoes around the world, putting many lives at risk”.

After Florida was hit by two devastating hurricanes in recent weeks, “there is evidence that the twin disasters are fueling something of a backlash” to Republican state leaders’ climate scepticism, the Guardian reports. It notes that former governor Rick Scott, who is seeking re-election as US senator next month in “a tight race” with the Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has “censored talk of the climate crisis” and disassembled Florida’s environment agencies. The article points to frustration among younger and first-time voters, “whom advocates say have been registering and voting early in unprecedented numbers”. Meanwhile, in hurricane-struck North Carolina, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leads in the polls by a small margin, according to the Financial Times. It says: “The destruction of Hurricane Helene has added more uncertainty to the race, with Republicans linking the recovery effort to the immigration crisis at the southern border.” It explains that Trump has “falsely claimed” that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “had no money for rescue and recovery because it had spent billions housing illegal immigrants”.

According to the National Flash Flood Services, the US has seen an unprecedented 91 flash flood emergencies this year, “more than any other year since this most-dire language was first used in 2003”, CNN reports. This is “a deadly, sobering statistic that scientists say paints a picture of the future as the planet warms”, it adds. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports on a new study that finds California fires spread almost four times faster in 2020 than they did in 2001.

Reuters reports that, with Trump pledging to roll back president Joe Biden’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act if he takes power, “at least seven” of Trump’s close allies and fundraisers, or the companies they run, hold hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of stakes in companies that are “significant beneficiaries” of the act’s tax breaks. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has announced more than $3bn in funding for seven rural electric cooperatives, as part of a push to install renewable energy in rural areas, the Hill says. The New York Times has an article about outgoing Washington state governor Jay Inslee’s efforts to fight against an effort to repeal his state’s climate law.

More than 140 steel enterprises, whose steelmaking capacity has exceeded 620m tonnes, completed “ultra-low emission retrofitting” over the period January to August 2024, according to the latest data from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), state broadcaster CCTV reports. The outlet adds that the CISA has set new standards for steel low-carbon emission and predicted that the deployment of “high-grade steel materials” can cut 1.35bn tonnes of emissions by 2030. 

Meanwhile, Huang Runqiu, Chinese minister of ecology and environment, has “made a remark” at COP16, reports state news agency Xinhua. The agency quotes Huang saying the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, which China has pledged $210m, will “respond to the needs of developing countries and implement a number of projects to help developing countries implement…key goals including ecosystem restoration and protection, sustainable use of biodiversity, and prevention and control of invasive alien species”. 

Another Xinhua story says that China has funded a 35-megawatt (MW) geothermal power plant in Kenya. State-run newspaper China Daily publishes a “green action plan” for members of China’s Belt and Road Energy Partnership (BREP) – a project initiated by the country’s National Energy Administration (NEA) to promote “global energy transition and helping developing countries access more affordable clean energies”.

Finally, China and the EU have reached an agreement to “hold further technical negotiations soon on possible alternatives” to tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), Reuters reports. Xinhua also covers the story, adding that the two sides “have decided to continue to make price commitment as the solution to the case”. China has warned its EV exporters against “seeking individual deals with the EU as it wants all manufacturers under a common umbrella agreement as part of the talks”, Bloomberg reports.

Deutsche Welle reports on an anti-nuclear protest in Lingen, Germany, over the potential involvement of Russian state corporation Rosatom in fuel cell production at a local plant. The outlet continues that among the speakers was Russian environmentalist and activist Vladimir Slivyak, recipient of the 2021 alternative Nobel Prize, who strongly urged the plant’s operator, the French state corporation Framatome, not to cooperate with Rosatom, warning that the Kremlin would use this partnership “to exert geopolitical influence”. 

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle reports that the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has signed 27 new agreements during his three-day visit to India in areas such as renewable energy, research and critical technologies. WirtschaftsWoche and Deutschlandfunk report that the German economy minister Robert Habeck has confirmed that Germany and India agreed to cooperate on “green hydrogen” for use in helping to decarbonise industries like steel and cement. Reuters also reports on the story. Finally, the German government has invested €8m in a project to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy in mosques across Morocco, reports Middle East Monitor.

Leaders meeting at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting have agreed that a nation’s maritime boundaries should remain the same, even if climate change causes small island states to be submerged, Reuters reports. The Commonwealth members, 49 of which have a coastline and 25 are small island developing states, decided on their first Ocean Declaration at the end of the summit in Samoa, the article notes. It explains: “Fixing maritime boundaries means atoll nations can continue to reap the economic benefit of vast fishing grounds, even if much of the population must migrate as its dry land area is significantly reduced.” The Associated Press notes that the declaration also includes protecting 30% of oceans and restoring degraded marine ecosystems by 2030, developing coastal climate adaptation plans and strengthening support for sustainable blue economies.

Australian author Tim Winton has written an article for the Guardian in which he commends the work of activists who are fighting against the “global addiction” to fossil fuels. He says scientists and activists have been doing everything in their power to “save us from sinking back into our deadly cultural and political stupor”, but have been met with criticism from politicians and the media. Winton writes: “Right now, legions of young people are divesting themselves of our sad and lonely captivity to business as usual. And they’re getting organised, networking, skilling up, raising their voices and literally placing their bodies in the path of those who profit from our addiction.” He continues: “Yes, these young patriots can be awkward to contend with. They feel so vexatious and countercultural. All their banners and slogans. Their blockades slowing our commute. All those difficult questions they ask at shareholder meetings.” He says there is a need for more solidarity and the formation of “new and unlikely alliances”, noting that: “We’re lucky to have young people of conscience and courage. And I suspect that deep down, we know they’re right.”

The average peak daily growth rate for “destructive fast fires” –  defined as fires that grow more than 1,620 hectares in one day – more than doubled in the western US over 2001-20, according to new research. The authors used satellite data to analyse the growth rates of more than 60,000 fires across the US over 2001-20. Over this period, destructive fast fires were responsible for 78% of destroyed structures and 61% of suppression costs in the US, the study finds. “Given recent devastating wildfires, understanding fast fires is crucial for improving firefighting strategies and community preparedness,” the study authors say.