The UK Met Office has confirmed that last month was the UK’s hottest June on record, BBC News reports. According to the outlet, the average monthly temperature of 15.8C exceeded the previous highest average June temperature, recorded in 1940 and 1976, by 0.9C. It continues: “Climate change made the chance of surpassing the previous joint record at least twice as likely, scientists also said. Records were broken in 72 of the 97 areas in the UK from which temperature data is collected. As well as the overall UK June record, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each recorded their warmest June since the Met Office started collecting the data in 1884.” The Times covers the story under the headline: “June was hottest on record because of climate change.” The newspaper reports that water companies “reported surging demand”. It adds that the hottest day of 2023 so far was 10 June, when highs of 32.2C were recorded in Surrey. The Daily Telegraph adds that June 2023 had the most sun for the month since 1957 and just 68% of its average monthly rainfall.

Sky News reports that, by the 2050s, the chance of surpassing the previous record of 14.9C could be as high as around 50%, or every other year. Sky News climate change and energy correspondent, Hannah Thomas-Peter, adds: “The ‘fingerprint of climate change’ on the UK’s June temperature record is a stark declaration from the Met Office. The phrase invokes something sinister, as far away as possible from any celebration of a lovely warm June. They will have chosen the language carefully, expecting the inevitable cries of ‘that’s nonsense, of course it’s warm in the summer!’ But the Met Office couldn’t be any clearer.” The Financial Times reports that the Met Office announcement “came on the same day as the UK Environmental Audit Committee launched a new inquiry on heat resilience that will throw a spotlight on government policy”. It continues: “The committee flagged the need to find sustainable cooling methods, noting that in June Britain broke its 46 day run of coal-free electricity generation to meet demand for air conditioning.” The Met Office announcement is also covered in the Daily Mail, i newspaper, the Independent and Le Monde.

Meanwhile, the Independent asks whether the UK will see 40C heat this summer (as it did last year for the first time). It says: “The Met Office says there’s no indication of exceptional heat in the next few days even though there has been ‘persistent warmth for much of the month’”.

The head of the International Energy Agency has warned that UK energy prices could spike this winter, the Guardian reports. The paper continues: “Fatih Birol said a rapid improvement in the Chinese economy, coupled with a harsh winter, could put pressure on gas supplies and push up bills for consumers. He said the agency ‘cannot rule out’ another spike in gas prices this winter, which would mirror last year when a surge in wholesale costs as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fed through to high consumer bills.” BBC News adds that Birol said governments should “push for energy-saving and boost renewables”. However, the outlet adds that, according to a UK government spokesperson, annual energy bills in the UK are set to fall by an average of £430 this month. This comes as the Daily Telegraph reports that the National Grid is “urging factory owners to cut their electricity use at peak times as part of efforts to bolster power supplies this winter”.

In other UK news, the Press Association reports that the House of Lords heard concerns yesterday over the environmental credentials of the Drax power station in North Yorkshire. According to the paper, a minister said the plant “could lose subsidies if it is found not to be complying with sustainability requirements”. It continues: “One peer called for independent scientists to be sent to Canada to verify the sustainability of wood used to make biomass pellets and another accused a minister of having his ‘head in the sand’ over the issue. The energy regulator Ofgem said in May that it was investigating whether Drax Power Limited is in breach of ‘annual profiling reporting requirements relating to the Renewables Obligations scheme and other related matters’.”

Elsewhere, LBC reports that deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden has been accused of misleading Parliament, after claiming in the House of Commons that Labour’s plans to invest £28bn a year in green energy would add £1,000 a year to “everyone’s mortgages”. The outlet continues: “He made the claim a day after an article in the Daily Mail reported this figure and said it had come from ‘Treasury analysis’. However, the Treasury has admitted to LBC that the statistic does not come from official analysis. It was forced to make the same admission to the UK’s statistics watchdog after that organisation demanded to know where the figure had come from.”

According to China’s National Climate Center, the number of “high-temperature days” in China this year is the “highest on record since 1961 [when such records began] for the same period”, reports CCTV, citing a report by Beijing Youth Daily. There have already been “four regional heatwaves” this year, characterised by “early occurrence, wide impact and significant extreme conditions”, the state broadcaster adds. The agency predicts that during the summer months (July-August) of this year, temperatures in most of China will be 1-2C higher than the average temperature recorded in previous summers. Additionally, there will be “intermittent periods of high temperatures”, the article says. CNN covers the same news, adding that the National Climate Center last Sunday said China observed an average of 4.1 days in the first half of this year with “maximum daily temperatures” surpassing 35C. In other extreme weather news, AFP reports that “Chinese authorities have warned of extreme weather and ‘multiple natural disasters’ in the coming month, as heavy rain in parts of the country led to thousands being evacuated”. It adds: “An alert was in place on Tuesday for rain-triggered disasters in large swathes of central and southwestern China, according to the official Xinhua news agency.”

Separately, AFP quotes a speech given in Beijing by European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans. Timmermans said he was “convinced that China is willing to go in the right direction”, but added that there is a “contradiction” between its goals to combat climate change and its continued building of coal-fired power plants, according to the outlet. The Associated Press adds: “China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua attended the conference and presented a commemorative plate to Timmermans, who is on a two-day visit to China for the EU-China High-level Environment and Climate Dialogue.” The outlet notes that China is “one of the biggest investors in wind and solar”, but is also “the top producer and consumer of coal”.

Meanwhile, the state-backed Global Times quotes Xu Huaqing, head of the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, an institution under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He says that “it is impossible to ask China to set the same carbon price as the EU now and achieving such a goal will require time”. The South China Morning Post carries an article, titled: “Will China’s experiment to promote low-carbon living to its 1.4 billion people work?” The outlet says that various companies and local Chinese authorities are “working on apps that let individuals earn points for green actions such as bringing their own cup when buying coffee”. In an interview with CGTN, Deng Jianling, director of the board and president at China Huaneng Group, a state-owned electricity generation enterprise, says that the country will “continue to play a key role in the global energy transformation process”. Separately, China “undocked the world’s largest crude-oil-processing vessel” by tonnage and storage last weekend, reports the South China Morning Post.

Finally, state news agency Xinhua reports that Chinese national Qu Dongyu was re-elected as the director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), who has “actively” led the FAO to tackle the challenges concerning global food security. Economic Information Daily focuses on a report published by the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation and Greenpeace on climate actions in “three important regions” in China: the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; the Yangtze River Delta; and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

A new report finds that litigation around “climate-washing” has surged over the past few years, DeSmog reports. The outlet continues: “Climate-washing litigation confronts various types of deceptive or misleading claims, typically put forth by carbon-intensive corporations, that try to portray their plans, products, or operations as more climate-friendly than they actually are…Out of 81 climate-washing cases filed against companies since 2015, nearly two-thirds were brought in 2021 and 2022. By contrast, fewer than 10 such cases were filed both in 2020 and 2019.” The Press Association reports that the UK is “a top target for activist investors as major firms like Shell, BP, HSBC and the Restaurant Group have faced shareholder rebellions this year”. It adds: “Environmental campaigns have become more prominent as activists ramp up calls for corporations to commit to stronger climate policies. They accounted for 12% of all activist campaigns in 2023, compared to just 4% in 2019.”  BusinessGreen adds: “High profile examples include the directors of Shell being personally sued by environmental law group ClientEarth for allegedly failing to adequately manage the risks posed to the oil and gas company by climate change, and BNP Paribas being taken to court by a raft of NGOs over its climate credentials, investment in fossil fuels, and contribution to climate change.”

Russia and Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that they will extend or make additional cuts to oil production in August, the Financial Times reports. According to the newspaper, Saudi Arabia will extend the one million barrels per day production cut announced last month for July into August, while Russia will make a “voluntary” supply cut of an additional 500,000 barrels per day next month. The paper continues: “The move by the Opec+ leaders, made outside of a formal meeting of the group, comes as they have struggled to boost the price of crude oil that has fallen sharply from its peak last year in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Having briefly risen above $130 a barrel last March, oil is now trading closer to $75 a barrel, despite a series of announced production cuts by the group that started in October last year, with traders focusing on high inflation and a potential recession in many large economies.” Reuters adds that, later on yesterday, Algeria announced that it would cut its oil output by an extra 20,000 barrels from 1-31 August. The New York Times reports that these cuts could amount to 1.5% of global supply. “Oil prices initially jumped on news of the cuts but later faded”, it adds. The announcement is covered in the Wall Street Journal, the Hill and Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that “Swiss authorities are probing a prominent Geneva-based oil trader’s legal arrangements to sidestep Russia sanctions, in a sign the country has begun actively policing its large commodity industry’s ties with Moscow.”

In the Sun, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak writes that the disruptive tactics of the likes of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are “challeng[ing]” the “tolerant, live-and-let-live approach” of people in Britain. These groups, he claims, aim to “bypass and undermine our democracy” and – in the case of Extinction Rebellion’s demand for net-zero by 2025 – would “destroy entire industries, cripple the NHS, throw millions out of work and paralyse the electricity system”. Sunak promises “to discuss further ways we can reduce the chances of people’s enjoyment being ruined” at a summit this week of “major sporting bodies, the home secretary and the police”. He contrasts his approach with Labour leader Keir Starmer’s “slavish” support for Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, referencing Starmer’s pledge to end new North Sea oil and gas licences if elected [a policy Just Stop Oil share with the International Energy Agency and a large consensus of scientists, as explained in a recent Carbon Brief factcheck]. In a separate editorial, the Sun accuses – yet again – Labour of being “held captive” to Just Stop Oil “cultists”.

Next week, environmental campaigners will “watch through their fingers” as “one of the most consequential decisions so far is made in relation to the EU’s net-zero targets”, writes an editorial in the Guardian. A proposed EU “nature restoration law” would commit European governments to “rehabilitate and rewild swathes of territory suffering from desertification, deforestation and the draining of peatlands”, the editorial continues. “The law’s role in facilitating carbon capture and creating healthy, resilient ecosystems is deemed indispensable by scientists, if emissions reduction targets are to be met.” But “[a] new age of economic and geopolitical insecurity” – compounded by the rise of the European right – has made a “challenging” transition “even tougher,” the editorial warns. “In the face of political headwinds, it will not be accomplished on the cheap.”

Trailed across the Daily Mail’s frontpage today, former Conservative minister turned columnist, Nadine Dorries, continues the paper’s campaign against electric vehicles. “I used to support the government’s target to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, too – but that was before a pandemic, before Putin invaded Ukraine and before the cost of electricity shot through the roof,” Dorries writes. “Now, I believe that the target should be delayed. The cost of charging an electric car is bad enough – but the infrastructure to power millions of them simply isn’t there.” The Daily Mail also devotes a whole spread – with at least four separate attacks on EVs – within its print edition to its “rethink petrol car ban” campaign. (See a new debunking Twitter thread by Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans.)

Over the coming century, the southern hemisphere will see a greater increase in compound drought and heatwave (CDHW) occurrence, while the northern hemisphere will see a greater increase in CDHW severity, according to a new study. The authors use models from the sixth coupled model intercomparison project to combine weekly drought and heatwave information under three future development pathways (shared socioeconomic pathways). They compare changes in CDHW characteristics over the coming century with a 1982-2019 baseline. “East Africa, North Australia, East North America, Central Asia, Central Europe, and Southeastern South America show the greatest increase in frequency through the late 21st century,” the paper says.