Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana yesterday, reports Reuters, “killing six people and flattening buildings across a wide swatch of the state before moving into Arkansas with heavy rains”. It continues: “Laura caused less mayhem than forecasts predicted – but officials said it remained a dangerous storm and that it would take days to assess the damage. At least 867,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas remained without power on Thursday afternoon.” Governor John Bel Edwards told a news conference: “This was the most powerful storm to ever make landfall in Louisiana…It’s continuing to cause damage and life-threatening conditions.” Laura made landfall as a category 4 hurricane near the Texas border, notes the Hill, before being later downgraded to a tropical storm. With sustained winds of 150mph, Laura was “just 7 mph shy of becoming a Category 5”, the outlet says, adding that “Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall in 2005”. Laura was the tied-fifth strongest hurricane on record to make landfall on the contiguous US, notes Yale Climate Connections. Edwards said that “we did not sustain and suffer the absolute catastrophic damage that we thought was likely based on the forecast that we had last night…But we have sustained a tremendous amount of damage. We have thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens whose lives are upside down”, reports the New York Times. Haiti and the Dominican Republic were both earlier badly hit by storms Marco and Laura, reports BBC News, “with at least 24 fatalities and severe flooding”. BuzzFeed News carries “dramatic photos” of the US damage and the Guardian reports on the aftermath in the Louisiana city of Lake Charles. The US agricultural sector was spared a direct hit from the hurricane, says Reuters, as the storm veered west of grain export terminals in New Orleans and missed many fields of unharvested cotton and sugar. As Laura moved inland, energy companies were organising crews to evaluate offshore Gulf of Mexico platforms and assess damage to coastal operations, says Reuters. The outlet notes that “Laura’s storm surge was much less than predicted, sparing refineries from feared massive flooding.” Offshore operators were scheduling reconnaissance flights over the more than 300 offshore platforms and drilling rigs whose crews evacuated last week, the newswire says. Environmental groups were also preparing to send teams to petrochemical and oil production sites checking for oil, gas and chemical releases, says Reuters. Oil and gas exports have been severely disrupted, reports another Reuters piece, with nearly a million barrels per day of crude exports likely reduced this week by closures of US Gulf Coast terminals and disruptions at ports. It adds: “The hurricane also temporarily suspended operations at several liquefied natural gas facilities in the world’s third largest exporter of the super-cooled gas, with shipments on track to fall to their lowest in 18 months.” Oil prices “eased” yesterday as “the market expected a quick recovery for production platforms”, notes Reuters. Bloomberg warns that even just closing and restarting undamaged petrochemical plants will cause the release of “cancer-causing benzene” and “planet-warming nitrous oxide”. Donald Trump said he will visit the Gulf region at the weekend, reports the Financial Times. During a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters yesterday, Trump said: “Now it turned out we got a little bit lucky…It was very big. It was very powerful, but it passed quickly.” Bloomberg reports that FEMA “spends far more on counter-terror than natural disasters”. The hurricane also damaged a Louisiana chemical plant, causing it to catch fire, reports the Washington Post. Governor Edwards warned residents to turn off their air conditioners, seal their homes and stay indoors, the paper says. New York Times adds: “The Louisiana and Texas coastlines, which have endured many storms over the decades, are studded with sprawling facilities that produce fuel, plastics and other products. And while no one is safe when a hurricane strikes, poor and largely Black neighbourhoods often located near industrial sites are particularly vulnerable.”

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Typhoon Bavi had caused only minimal damage to the country after making landfall early on Thursday, state news media KCNA reported on Friday”.

In an “exclusive”, the Guardian reports that Hunterston nuclear power station, one of the UK’s oldest remaining nuclear plants, is to close down earlier than expected next year after encountering a series of safety-critical problems in its reactors. According to “industry sources”, the Guardian says that owner EDF Energy decided at a board meeting yesterday that it would stop generating electricity in late 2021, at least two years earlier than planned. “The energy company had hoped to keep generating electricity from the 44-year-old nuclear plant on the Firth of Clyde until 2023, after ploughing more than £200m into repairing the reactor,” the paper adds. The plant, which began operation in 1976, has two reactors, called 3 and 4, capable together of generating enough electricity to power around 1.7m homes, notes Reuters. Cracks were discovered in the core of Reactor 3 in 2018 with electricity generation expected to fall by 40% at the time,“ explains the Daily Telegraph, adding: “Reactor 4 was subsequently returned to service for several months in August 2019 having been one of two remaining reactors at the plant taken out of service the previous year.” EDF’s decision comes as the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) gave the company permission for Reactor 3 to return to service for approximately six months, adds the Press Association. The ONR deputy chief inspector said: “I am satisfied that the detailed safety justification provided by the licensee is sufficient to demonstrate that Reactor 3 can operate safely for this period of operation.”

In other UK energy supplier news, the Daily Telegraph reports that British Gas has been forced to pay £1.73m to customers affected by changes the energy supplier made to its prepayment plan. The paper continues: “The Centrica-owned supplier failed to inform some prepayment customers, many of whom are vulnerable, about a change of top-up provider and minimum top-up spend. Some may have had their supply of gas and electricity cut off as a result.” The Press Association also has the story. The Financial Times Lex column warns that Centrica’s British Gas brand “once had a sense of permanence to it”, but “as households shift to renewable energy that trademark holds less value”.

UN secretary general António Guterres has said that India must swiftly and permanently turn away from coal despite its need for cheap energy, reports the Guardian. Speaking to a virtual audience, Guterres said: “[Coal] spells stranded assets and makes no commercial sense – the coal business is going up in smoke…India can become a true global superpower in the fight against climate change if it speeds up its shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.“ Guterres warned against the risks, such as air pollution, to India’s health, the paper notes. He said: “Investing in fossil fuels means more deaths and illness and rising healthcare costs…It is, simply put, a human disaster and bad economics.” BusinessGreen also has the story. For more on India’s energy mix, see Carbon Brief’s India profile.

Indonesia has received funding from the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help reduce carbon emissions and tackle forest fires, Reuters reports. It says: “The $103.8m fund was granted under the REDD+ programme, a UN-backed forestry conservation scheme to tackle climate change, based on progress Indonesia made in 2014-16.” In June, an environment ministry official said there had been a 50% budget cut for the team that finds fires and helps put them out, the newswire says, noting that the country “has had to scale back spending in the area due to coronavirus budget pressures”. Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that the head of the GCF has pledged to tackle complaints of misconduct at the organisation “as a matter of urgency”, after claims against unidentified staff members were published by the Financial Times yesterday. The FT reported that there had been 40 complaints to the GCF’s independent integrity unit last year, the Guardian says. Chief executive Yannick Glemarec tells the paper that there were a high number of complaints – up from 21 the previous year – because the unit dealt with a wide range of minor issues regarding staff discipline and personnel, and not just misconduct complaints. One complaint in 2018 and one in 2019 were upheld, Glemarec added.

In Australia, the Guardian reports that a University of New South Wales (UNSW) academic has calculated that if a mining industry push for 21 new coal projects in the state goes ahead it would add seven years’ worth of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. The NSW Minerals Council has identified the unapproved coalmines, at various stages of environmental assessment and development, saying they would create about 10,000 jobs and generate billions in royalties, says the newspaper, adding: “[Prof Jeremy Moss, at the UNSW Climate Justice Project] says if all the projects go ahead, they would have a “huge climate impact” emitting 3,717m tonnes of CO2 equivalent over their lifetimes from the burning of the coal for power generation and to make steel.

Meanwhile, in other Australian developments, the controversial Adani coal mine continues to make headlines. The Guardian says that “Adani has quietly begun planning to rebrand its Abbot Point coal terminal – removing all reference to Adani in its company name and branding – as financiers continue to abandon the business and a Queensland court orders it to pay $106.8m in damages”. A separate Guardian article reports: “Coalmining company Adani asked a Queensland court for orders that would have allowed its representatives to conduct an unannounced search at the family home of an environmental activist. But the supreme court rejected the move, noting the search could result in ‘humiliation and family distress’ for Ben Pennings and others.”

The Sydney Morning Herald and Guardian both cover a warning from a coalition of environment and business groups that Australia is “woefully unprepared” for the scale of the climate change threats it faces and suffers from a public debate focused too much on the cost of action rather than the costs of failing to act. The Sydney Morning Herald also carries a comment piece on the topic by Emma Herd, chief executive of the Investor Group in Climate Change.

Finally, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “Australia’s clean energy fund is being primed to pump up the Morrison government’s plans for a gas-led economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, with proposed rule changes to fuel investment in gas power plants and infrastructure”. It adds: “Energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor introduced a bill to Parliament on Thursday that would change laws that bar the Clean Energy Finance Corp from investing in conventional fossil fuels and remove a rule that prevents it from investing in loss-making projects.” The Guardian also covers the story. And the Sydney Morning Herald also reports that, in 2014, “Tony Abbott’s climate change denial caused such frustration to Barack Obama that as president he ad-libbed barbed comments about the death of the Great Barrier Reef in a speech during a visit to Australia”. Abbott, the climate sceptic former Australian prime minister, is now the focus of controversy in the UK having been touted by the UK government for a new senior trade role.

Environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) plans to target airports and impose roadblocks during the bank holiday weekend as it kicks off a new programme of climate change demonstrations, reports the Press Association. It continues: “Beginning on Friday, a ‘regional rebellion’ over four days will see protests staged across the country, including in London, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff and Leeds. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on travel, protesters are encouraged to take action locally with the aviation sector, banks, the fossil fuel industry and petrol stations as targets.” The protests will likely include “roadblocks, marches, sit-ins, bike rides and picnics, with campaigners emphasising ‘non-violent direct action’”, says the i newspaper. Supporters will also be encouraged to protest digitally, and urged to phone their MPs and “institutions of power”, the paper adds.

There is widespread comment on both Hurricane Laura and the wildfires in California. Rolling Stone magazine reporter Jeff Goodell says US cities in the Gulf region are “all living on borrowed time”. He adds: “We are heating up the planet so fast that large parts of it will be uninhabitable by the end of the century. We are amping up storms like Hurricane Laura – it is the strongest storm to hit the Louisiana coast since 1856 – and turning the Gulf Coast into a shooting gallery.” At the same time, “the hotter the planet gets, the faster it burns”, Goodell writes: “Earlier this year, bushfires in Australia burned through 72,000 square miles and killed several billion animals. Now, California and Colorado are aflame.” We are now “at a point where every ton of CO2 we dump into the atmosphere creates a hotter, riskier, more dangerous world”, he says, concluding: “Maybe the real message that Mother Nature is sending with these storms and fires in the midst of the Republican National Convention is not to [President] Trump, but to us. And it says this: You can have four more years of Trump, or you can have a habitable planet. But you can’t have both.” In the Washington Post, climate reporters Chris Mooney and Andrew Freedman say that the rapid intensification of Hurricane Laura before landfall is “happening more frequently, thanks in part to warming ocean temperatures driven by climate change”. Meteorologist Jeff Masters makes the same point in a piece for Yale Climate Connections.

In the New York Times, freelance writer David Darlington says that California’s fire season was “bad enough before”, but a “pandemic-fire season is disaster squared: a collaboration of catastrophes”. he adds: “The catastrophe convergence is, of course, also at work in hurricane regions, whose ramifications we’re witnessing this week. Relief-wise, it’s awkward that hurricane season overlaps with fire season, and that the two major climate-change disaster scenarios involve opposite forces: fire and water. Again, this contemporary crisis paradigm has got us coming and going.” In Bloomberg, writers David R Baker, Eric Roston, and Brian Eckhouse say that Hurricane Laura and the California fires are “part of the same crisis”. They write: “Scientists hesitate to blame any particular storm solely on climate change. But the extreme weather conditions now testing the country, one disaster overlapping with the next, are exactly what they’ve long warned us to expect in a warming world.” Robinson Meyer, staff writer at the Atlantic, says “it seems facile to point out the role climate change has played in intensifying these disasters”. In Vox, staff writer Umair Irfan takes a look at “what makes California’s current major wildfires so unusual”. This summer’s blazes “stand out for their scale, timing, locations, and intensity, even among recent record-breaking fire seasons”, he says. His Vox colleague David Roberts warns that “if Donald Trump is reelected president, the likely result will be irreversible changes to the climate that will degrade the quality of life of every subsequent generation of human beings”. And in the Independent, reporters Louise Boyle and Katie Anderson also look at the potential implications for climate change of the forthcoming US election. They write: “Americans cast their ballots in November will, arguably, have wider and more lasting repercussions on this issue than any other.”

Ocean acidification is considered a significant threat to the functional integrity of coral reef ecosystems. However, detection and attribution of acidification impact on corals in nature are confounded by concurrent environmental changes, including ocean warming. This study uses a numerical model to isolate the effects of acidification and temperature, and show that acidification alone has caused 13% decline in the skeletal density of massive Porites corals on the Great Barrier Reef since 1950. This acidification‐induced thinning of coral skeletons reflects enhanced acidification of reef water relative to the surrounding open ocean. Their finding reinforces concerns that even corals that might survive multiple heatwaves are structurally weakened and increasingly vulnerable to the compounding effects of climate change.

Climate adaptation is a priority for Arctic regions which are witnessing some of the most rapid warming globally. Studies have documented examples of adaptation responses in the Arctic, but assessments evaluating if and how progress is being made over time remain scarce. This study finds no noticeable increase in reported adaptations in recent years. The majority of documented adaptations continue to be reported in North America, are being undertaken most often in the subsistence-based hunting and fishing sector, are primarily developed in response to a combination of climatic and non-climatic stimuli and are mainly carried out at the individual/community scale. Climate change is observed, however, to have a more prominent role in motivating adaptation between 2014–19, consistent with intensifying climate-related exposures in the Arctic. There is limited evidence in the reported adaptations analysed that potential opportunities and benefits from the impacts of climate change are being targeted.