More than 163 people have died in the “multiple landslides that wrecked…Kerala’s Wayanad district”, Manorama Online reports, with search and rescue operations resuming today. The state’s health minister is quoted by the Independent saying that “significant infrastructure damage…was making several areas inaccessible” and that helicopters have been mobilised to help with rescue efforts. It adds that while India’s prime minister Narendra Modi “announced financial aid of £1,900 for the families of the deceased”, opposition leader from Wayanad Rahul Gandhi called for an urgent “mapping of landslide-prone areas to address the growing frequency of natural calamities in the ecologically fragile region”. The newspaper also quotes climate scientist Roxy Koll saying that “[m]onsoon patterns are increasingly erratic and the quantum of rainfall that we receive in a short spell of time has increased”, leading to more frequent landslides and floods in India’s Western Ghats. Scientists have said that devastating landslides “could be the result of a combination of climate change, excessive mining and loss of forest cover in the region”, the Hindustan Times reports, with one scientist pointing to Arabian Sea warming, while the paper highlights a 62% decline of native forest cover between 1950-2018 and an 1800% increase in plantations. It adds that the recommendations of a key panel calling for a ban on mining, quarrying, new thermal, hydro and large-scale wind power projects in the eco-sensitive region “have not been implemented even after 14 years due to resistance from state governments, industries and local communities”. The Times, Guardian, CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, News Minute, Indian Express, Hindu, Mint and many other outlets report on the unfolding tragedy in Kerala. Heavy rains have also “claimed 65 lives and left thousands stranded” in Gujarat since the monsoon began on 15 June, says another Hindustan Times story. Jagran English reports that landslides and floods “triggered by” torrential rain and a cloudburst have “wreaked havoc” on the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal, “washing away” a bridge and blocking key highways.

Separately, in energy news, a new report finds that “only 5% of the annual electricity consumption of 33 leading Indian companies is sourced from renewable energy”, according to the Economic Times, with steel companies relying on renewables for less than 0.05% of their energy needs. Separately, the Press Trust of India reports that nearly 200 “mini steel plants” in the coal-rich state of Chhattisgarh have “stopped operations indefinitely since Monday night to protest” about recent power price hikes, “expected to affect more than 200,000 workers and their families”. Elsewhere, Scroll.in examines the “exploitative and degrading conditions” faced by workers from marginalised tribes hired to desilt Mumbai’s drains, to protect the city from flooding. Meanwhile, BBC Future Planet profiles the Indigenous tribe protecting the mithun, “a sacred cattle species in the Himalayas…threatened by deforestation and climate change”.

Athletes wore ice vests as temperatures reached 35C at the Olympic Games in Paris yesterday, BBC News reports. It says that a yellow heat alert was in place in the capital, with an orange alert in Bordeaux and Lyon, adding: “The sailing events are taking place in Marseille, on the Mediterranean coast in the south of France, where competitors wore ice vests to try to counteract the heat…A number of Tuesday’s events take place outside, including the dressage qualification at Versailles and the BMX freestyle qualifiers at Place de la Concorde…Organisers have contingency plans for each sport and venue. Some sports, for example, have a specific temperature threshold where play cannot continue if it goes above that. Tennis players were given an extended break between the second and third sets in the men’s and women’s singles.” The Daily Telegraph reports that horses taking part in the Games at the Palace of Versailles were kept cool in stables with “state-of-the-art cooling systems”. The Associated Press reports that the heat also affected volleyball games, saying: “Volunteers used hoses to spray down cheering fans at the shadeless beach volleyball stadium near the Eiffel Tower and put up signs about water refilling areas. Spectators ducked under trees for shade, while players on the sunbaked sand, which can be more than 20C hotter than the air temperature,took extra breaks to drape bags of ice over their heads and shoulders.” Athletes and spectators in Paris were given some respite when thunderstorms arrived in the evening, AP adds. The Guardian reports that organisers blamed climate change for a delay to the men’s triathlon on Tuesday. It reports: “Paris 2024 said the equivalent of the annual rainfall for July had fallen on the city on Friday and Saturday, leading to higher than permitted levels of E coli entering the Seine and forcing it to delay the race for safety reasons.”

Elsewhere in Europe, Reuters reports that wildfires have raged for a second day on the Greek island of Evia, as well as in the Balkans and in Albania, where a resort town was forced to evacuate yesterday. The New York Times reports that parts of the UK also experienced their hottest day of the year yesterday as temperatures reached 32C in London and the southeast, noting that this “may be typical weather this time of year for many parts of the world but is unusual for Britain”.

A story trailed on the Financial Times frontpage says that energy secretary Ed Miliband has raised potential financial support for new renewable power projects to a record £1.56bn a year “in a decision that follows intense lobbying from the clean energy industry”. It continues: “The energy secretary has raised by 50% the budget for this year’s subsidy contract auction, in which developers bid for 15-year state guarantees on their electricity price. The guarantees are paid for by a levy on energy bills, with the actual amount paid out each year dependent on power prices at the time. The decision follows industry warnings that power providers would struggle to meet current clean energy targets, and comes as ministers are trying to create the conditions to get wind farms off the ground as soon as possible.” The FT adds that “about £1.1bn of the total will be allocated for offshore wind projects, as the government tries to make up for a flopped auction round last year when no offshore wind developers bid”. Esin Serin, policy fellow at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, tells BBC News that the budget increase was a “welcome and necessary step”, but adds that this year’s auction would likely only deliver 10GW of the 40GW needed for Labour to meet its 2030 wind power target. Bloomberg says that the auction could deliver 5.5-7GW of offshore wind, according to analysts at Bernstein. The outlet adds that it is unclear how much the new renewable capacity will cost consumers: “[T]he more electricity prices fall, bill payers will increasingly fill the gap. If prices stay at current levels or increase, then the green power plants will cost little or even pay back money.” There is further coverage of the move in the Daily Telegraph, the Times and the Guardian, among other publications.

Elsewhere, a frontpage story in the Scotsman covers a new report from Scottish just transition advisers finding that the cost of decarbonising Scotland’s homes and buildings could be as much as £130bn, four times more than the Scottish government’s official estimate. In addition, the Daily Telegraph says Rolls-Royce has cleared a “key hurdle” in the race to build the UK’s first “mini nuclear” reactor.

Kamala Harris will not seek to ban fracking if she becomes president, campaign officials confirm to the Guardian. The frontrunner to succeed Joe Biden as the Democrats’ nominee in the presidential race had previously, as a candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination, “vowed to ban fracking, as well as back a Green New Deal, a progressive resolution to shift the US to 100% renewable energy, and new government dietary guidelines to encourage people to reduce their meat eating”, the Guardian says. However, since becoming vice-president in 2021, Harris has followed the Biden administration approach that allows fracking, the newspaper says. Harris’s team made the clarification after Donald Trump told supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina last week that Harris “wants no fracking”, adding: “You’re going to be paying a lot of money. You’re going to be paying so much. You’re going to say, ‘bring back Trump’.” According to the newspaper, a Harris spokesperson responded to Trump’s comments saying: “Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.” Elsewhere, the Washington Post reports that more than 350 “prominent climate advocates” on Tuesday endorsed Harris for president in a letter given to the newspaper. The list includes former US climate envoy John Kerry, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Washington governor Jay Inslee, the newspaper says.

Meanwhile, much of the US continues to battle extreme weather. The Associated Press reports that “apocalyptic” flash floods in Vermont “caved in roads, crushed vehicles, pushed homes off their foundations and led to dramatic boat rescues” yesterday. AP also reports that a wildfire near a Colorado city doubled in size from Monday to Tuesday, forcing mandatory evacuations. A separate AP story says firefighters are making progress against California’s huge Park Fire, ahead of more extreme temperatures later this week. Elsewhere, NBC News reports on a study finding wildfire smoke may have a stronger link to dementia than other types of pollution.

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers have seen record car registrations in Europe and captured 11% of the EU’s EV market in June, Bloomberg reports. The outlet adds that automakers are “rushing to add European EV manufacturing [capacity] so they can avoid the new [import] duties, while tensions between Beijing and Brussels risk devolving into a trade war”. Industry news outlet Inside EVs quotes an Axios interview with US secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg, who says that China’s support for its EV industry is “a market distortion policy driven by China” and “not fair competition”. Bloomberg also reports that in the second quarter of 2024, Hungary’s economy, which is “heavily reliant” on EV battery demand, has “unexpectedly contracted” from the previous quarter due to “lacklustre demand for electric car batteries in the automotive industry”.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that “Chinese companies have broken ground on three major road projects” in  the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a renegotiated minerals-for-infrastructure deal to develop a copper and cobalt mine. Economic newswire Jiemian publishes an “in-depth” feature about Tianqi Lithium’s legal struggle to retain its mining rights in Chile’s Atacama Salt Flat, which holds more than 10% of the world’s proven lithium resources, amid a nationalisation drive by the Chilean government. The New York Times carries an article saying that Chinese EV companies are “stampeding into overseas markets” such as Thailand.

Meanwhile, China’s “world-leading” solar sector is grappling with “a wave of company failures and consolidation” due to excess capacity, Bloomberg says. State news agency Xinhua reports that, in a meeting of China’s central committee, president Xi Jinping emphasised the “need to cultivate and expand emerging industries” and stressed the importance of “ensuring smooth exits for backward and inefficient production capacities”. Economic news outlet Yicai reports that China’s nuclear power industry called for “incorporating nuclear power into the green electricity system” as currently the sector faces “significant cost pressures” in participating in China’s electricity market due to its “lack of flexibility” and uncertain “green and low-carbon value”. Industry news outlet BJX News carries an announcement from China Energy Engineering Group that the “world’s largest and most energy-efficient coal-fired power CO2 capture project” has entered its installation phase. The Communist Party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports that the “world’s first 300 megawatt compressed air energy storage station” is expected to “start full-capacity operation within this year”.

Fossil-fuel company BP is to hand investors $7bn this year as it set out plans to develop a new oil hub in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian says. It reports: “The oil company has angered green groups by giving the go-ahead to develop potential oil resources of 10bn barrels from the new Kaskida project 250 miles south-west of New Orleans, after scaling back its green investments in the last quarter. At the same time it will raise its dividend payments by 10% while buying back stock worth $1.75bn over the next three months to bring its total buy-backs for the first half of the year to $3.5bn – and $7bn for 2024 as whole. In total BP has paid out $14.8bn to shareholders since June 2023, the month that marked the start of the world’s first year-long breach of the 1.5C heating limit, according to an analysis by Global Witness.” The Times reports on comments from BP chief executive Murray Auchincloss, who “would not be drawn on whether the energy group would further scale back a target to reduce oil and gas production by 25% by 2030, against 2019 level”. According to the newspaper, he said: “I’m not really focused on production volumes. I’m focused on cash and earnings, as I continue to tell the market that’s what counts.” Auchincloss also said that oil refineries across Europe will be forced to shut as the world transitions to net-zero, the Daily Telegraph says.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the top global regulator of private-sector climate goals, has released a review concluding that “carbon credits are ineffective in delivering their intended mitigation outcomes”, Bloomberg reports. SBTi’s review also said that corporate use of carbon credits could “stall decarbonisation efforts and reduce the flow of climate finance”, Bloomberg says. It adds: “The report is likely to reverberate through the market for carbon offsets, already tainted by allegations of greenwashing. In April, SBTi’s board was itself the subject of controversy after appearing to sanction a wider use of carbon credits, sparking cheers from offset-market participants but criticism from climate scientists and environmental groups.” Reuters says that the review ultimately finds that “there was not enough scientific support for [SBTi] to lift restrictions on companies using carbon credits to offset their emissions”.

Daily Telegraph world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard comments on the government’s decision to raise the budget for this year’s renewable subsidy contract auction, saying: “The government has nudged up the operating buffer for this year’s AR6 auction of fixed offshore wind contracts to £1.1bn but this is still not nearly enough to underpin the goal of quadrupling offshore wind by 2030. Time is already running out, given the six to eight-year lag time for offshore windfarms. Unless this buffer is backed by serious money, Labour has no chance of hitting its target of 100% clean power in six years. It is the test case for the credibility of Ed Miliband, the plenipotentiary of energy security and net zero.” Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph carries a column on recent Just Stop Oil protests with the headline: “Rich entitled eco activists loathe the working poor”; a column on Rachel Reeves’ statement to parliament this week saying that the government is “giving in to eco-lunatics” and a column saying that the UK should not “make a fetish” out of its industrial past. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has an editorial saying that Labour’s decision to remove winter fuel allowance for wealthier pensioners shows there is a “great danger that Britain’s future prosperity is being sacrificed on the altar of Labour’s incoherence and ideology”. The Daily Mail also has a full-page column from comedian Griff Rhys Jones on his worries that wind and solar farms will blight the UK countryside. Meanwhile, columnist Tim Newark uses the lead comment slot in the Daily Express to call Reeves’ decision on the winter fuel allowance “very ill judged”.

An editorial in the Financial Times says that the future of the Olympics rests on finding solutions to reduce emissions and make the Games more sustainable. It says: “It is an existential imperative for the Olympics to do better. Climate change is already having an impact, whether from the heat that now threatens most summer Games, or the dwindling snow cover that jeopardises winter Olympics. Demonstrable efficiency is also key to attracting potential hosts put off by the risk of Montreal-style cost overruns. From Dick Fosbury’s 1968 “flop”-style high jump, to the more recent aerodynamic skinsuits of the Team GB cycling team, innovations have enlivened and improved Olympic competition. An inventive, cost-effective and sustainable approach to staging the Games is equally vital to their future.”

The decline of Arctic sea ice due to human-caused warming could “considerably reshape” patterns of global shipping networks and international trade among Asia, Europe and America, a new study says. The researchers combine climate and ship navigability data and use low- and medium-emission scenarios to analyse Arctic sea ice conditions and navigability from 2023 to 2100. They focus on open-water (OW) ships and “Polar Class 7” (PC7) – those currently only suitable for operating in summer and autumn. Under medium emissions, PC7 ships “will be able to achieve stable and safe navigation during the summer and autumn seasons, with the potential for year-round navigation from 2065 onward”, the study says. By 2100, The study projects that the Arctic will be navigable for PC7 and OW ships for an average of 301 and 247 days a year, respectively.

A new “perspective” paper explores how climate-driven migration could affect the threat of infectious diseases around the world. Climate change, migration and infectious disease are linked through various processes, the authors say, such as “the expansion of pathogens into non-endemic areas, overcrowding in new informal settlements, and the increased proximity of disease vectors and susceptible human populations”. The paper notes that countries expected to be worst hit “are those that have made the least contribution to climate change”. It concludes that further research is needed to “generate robust evidence on the potential consequences of climate change-related human movements and migration, as well as identify effective and bespoke short- and long-term interventions”. (For more on climate-driven migration, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer and reporting from Thailand.)