A Montana state court has ruled in favour of young people, who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels, reports the Washington Post. A provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) has harmed the state environment and young plaintiffs, the court determined in the first of its kind case, as it prevented Montana from considering the impacts of energy projects, continues the article. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, adds the Washington Post. The decision by Judge Kathy Seeley in Helena marked a “major victory in the first youth-led climate case to reach trial in the US and could influence similar cases nationwide”, reports Reuters. The 16 plaintiffs were aged between two and 18 when they sued Montana in 2020, adds the newswire. They claimed the state had permitted coal and natural gas projects that had exacerbated climate change despite a 1972 amendment to the Montana constitution requiring the state to protect and improve the environment, continues Reuters. “The case is being watched nationwide as a bellwether for litigants who want to hold governments and fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change. The verdict – which the state vowed to appeal to the Montana Supreme Court – could serve as a model for similar youth-led lawsuits in other states”, reports Politico. In June, judge Seeley heard seven days of testimony, including from young people, who said the state’s reliance on fossil fuels is lengthening its wildfire season, drying up its rivers and worsening health conditions. Politico quotes Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and executive director of Our Children’s Trust, which represented the youth in the case, saying: “Today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos. This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate. More rulings like this will certainly come.” The 103-page order from judge Seeley “affirmed the activists’ position in resounding fashion, striking down the portion of MEPA and laying out in detail what’s at risk when states fail to confront the climate impacts of their decisions”, reports the Independent. Seeley noted that in terms of per capita emissions, Montana’s consumption of fossil fuels is disproportionately large, with only five US states having greater per-capita emissions, the article adds. There are at least 14 other lawsuits from youth activists seeking to hold state bodies accountable for violating climate rights that have been dismissed, notes the Independent. The outcome of this Montana case comes as the number of climate change cases in the US and around the world are growing, doubling since 2017, reports Axios. In 2022, there were at least 2,180 such cases, mostly in the US, it notes. Our Children’s Trust is also representing youth plaintiffs in state climate lawsuits in Utah, Virginia and Hawaii – where there is similarly environmental rights written into its constitution, as does Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – as well as 21 young people in a federal constitutional climate lawsuit, which is on track to go to trial after a federal judge ruled in favour of plaintiffs in June, continues Axios. Emily Flower, spokesperson for Montana’s attorney general Austin Knudsen, called the ruling “absurd” and has said the office is planning to appeal the ruling, reports the Daily Telegraph. “She criticised the judge for allowing the group of young activists to put on what she branded a ‘taxpayer-funded publicity stunt’”, the article continues. The story was also covered by the Hill, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Deutsche Welle, the Financial Times, the Seattle Times, and others. 

The wildfires in Hawaii are now the deadliest in modern US history, with at least 99 people having died, reports the Independent. This figure is expected to increase, with Hawaii governor Josh Green warning people it could be by as much as 10-to-20 people a day as officials continue to search for survivors and victims, continues the article. The Independent quotes Green, who on Monday told CBS “We are prepared for many tragic stories. They will find 10-to-20 people per day, probably, until they finish. And it’s probably going to take 10 days. It’s impossible to guess, really”. The fires began last Tuesday, and engulfed Lahaina in western Maui, destroying more than 2,200 structures, reports the Financial Times. The estimated cost of damage is already at $5.5bn and could reach as high as $7bn, the article adds. Officials said on Monday that the Lahaina fire is now 85% contained, with other smaller outbreaks on the island also being gradually brought under control or extinguished, add the FT. 

Fire risks are escalating in several other parts of the US, reports the Washington Post, “fuelling fears that dangerous blazes could strike during late summer and fall”. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, spots from the west to the deep south to the upper midwest, as well as Hawaii and Alaska, face heightened wildfire risk in the coming weeks and months, the article adds. A separate Washington Post article reports that the Pacific north-west is the “latest target in summer’s extreme-heat epidemic”. Intense heat arrived in portions of Oregon and Washington state that is expected to last through the week, with numerous heat alerts in place, it adds.

Ships are facing long queues and delays to travel through the Panama Canal due to a lengthy drought in the Central American country, reports the Guardian. In a “fresh demonstration of the impact of the climate crisis on global business and trade”, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has introduced restrictions on the number of vessels able to pass through “one of the world’s most important trading routes”, it continues. In May, the ACP brought in a 44ft depth limit on the largest ships and from the end of July it also limited daily crossings to 32, reports the Financial Times. This contributed to a backlog of 264 ships waiting to cross the canal on Friday, a 16% increase compared to the same day last year, it notes. While this is not the first time the Panama canal has imposed depth restriction, the fact that these were in place during the rainy season is “highly unusual” according to Steve Paton, director of the physical monitoring programme at the Smithsonian Institution in Panama City, who adds that the next dry season was “looking very, very problematic”, reports the FT. Elsewhere, Indonesia’s disaster agency is also warning of drought, reports Reuters. A longer dry season due to El Niño is threatening clean water supply and increasing the risk of forest fires across Java and Bali, it adds. 

Landslides, triggered by torrential rain in India’s Himalayas over the weekend, have killed more than 50 people, reports Reuters. More than 20 people remained trapped or missing, with the death toll expected to rise, it continues. The government has blamed climate change for the unusually heavy rain and melting glaciers, which have brought deadly flash floods to the mountains of India and neighbouring Pakistan and Nepal over the past year or two, the newswire adds. Of those killed, at least nine were in a temple that collapsed after it was hit by a landslide in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, reports the New York Times. Rescue workers are struggling to pull bodies from the mud surrounding the temple, with about 250 personnel from the Indian army, police and disaster force leading rescue operations, it adds. India’s Meteorological Department has issued an orange alert in the state of Himachal Pradesh in anticipation of further heavy rain, reports the Hindustan Times. There is a flash flood warning across nine of 13  districts in the state, except Una, Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti, it adds. BBC News reports that “environmentalists have frequently raised concerns over infrastructural changes made to accommodate an influx of tourists in India’s Himalayan states. They say that this could cause havoc in these ecologically fragile regions, especially when combined with extreme weather events”.

Some Tesla models are now half the price in China as they are in Europe and the US, reports the Financial Times. The US electric-car maker is “leading a cut-throat price war among EV makers in China”, it continues, as local manufacturers have “little choice but to cut prices faster and deeper” than the company. On Monday, Tesla launched another round of price cuts, having already “slashed prices” several times in China, it adds. This latest round of reductions follows flagging sales and intense competition from local electric-car makers, reports the Daily Telegraph. Sales of Tesla’s Chinese-made cars fell 31% in July from the previous month, it continues. Tesla shares dropped almost 2% in US pre-market trading, while Chineses electric-car manufacture BYD’s shares fell 9% in Hong Kong as the escalating price war worries investors, the article continues. Demand for electric-cars in China has “flagged since Beijing paused generous incentives last year, leaving manufacturers squabbling for sales in a smaller market”, notes the Daily Telegraph. 

Chinese president Xi Jinping has stressed that China will continue to “promote adjustments in the energy structures” and “vigorously develop renewable energy”, reports the China National Radio. The state radio network adds that since the beginning of this year, guided by the “dual carbon” targets, China’s renewable energy industry has “maintained a rapid growth momentum, laying a solid foundation for the ‘green’ and low-carbon transformation of energy and electricity”. Reuters reports that the State Council, China’s chief administrative authority, has issued foreign investment guidelines to “optimise” the “investment environment and attract more foreign investment”. The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News covers the same news, adding that the guidelines aim to “support foreign-invested enterprises to participate more in trading of green certificates and cross-provincial and cross-regional green electricity”.

Meanwhile, CNN reports that, according to local authorities, a “flash flood and landslide following torrential rains” on the outskirts of Xi’an city in north-western China have resulted in “the loss of at least 21 lives and the missing of six others”. The Indian news channel Wion covers the same news. State news agency Xinhua reports that the Chinese ministry of agriculture and rural affairs has intensified its efforts to support “flood-ravaged regions” to “minimise” the negative consequences on vegetable cultivation and guarantee a “stable supply”. Another Xinhua report says the ministry of water resources launched a “level-IV emergency response” to a drought that has affected four provinces in north China. 

Separately, the South China Morning Post quotes Abo-Hamed, co-founder and CEO of London-based H2Go Power, who says that Asia’s rapid energy demand growth suggests that it has the “growth potential and the readiness to transition to more diversified and cleaner energy opportunities”. A South China Morning Post comment piece by Eric Stryson, managing director of the Global Institute For Tomorrow, says that “with its deep and open capital markets, early lead in ‘green finance’ and backing from China, Hong Kong is arguably the best-positioned among leading international finance centres to facilitate meeting the world’s need for new ways to pay for climate adaptation”.

Elsewhere, the state-supporting newspaper the Global Times says that a Chinese company Mingyang Energy had developed equipment which “combines wind turbines and fish farming”. The state-run newspaper China Daily writes that, according to China Shipowners’ Association, China has “surpassed Greece” to become the largest nation in ship ownership globally in terms of gross tonnage. It quotes Dong Liwan, professor at Shanghai Maritime University, who says that: numerous Chinese companies have “accelerated” the process of “retiring their older ships with high fuel emissions”, opting instead to procure new and more advanced vessels to “cut carbon emission”. 

In the wake of the disaster in Hawaii, lessons will need to be learnt, as climate-related disasters become “more frequent, more unpredictable and intensively destructive”, says an editorial in the Guardian. State authorities in Hawaii seem to have been “badly behind the curve”, it continues, noting that a recent emergency management plan from the government described the risk of wildfires to human life as “low”. Record-breaking temperatures in recent years, forest loss and abandoned farmland featuring non-native grasses turned parts of Maui into a “virtual tinderbox”. Yet when fires began, warning sirens failed to work, the island’s firefighting force was ill-equipped and overstretched. The editorial concludes: “Global heating has inaugurated an era of climatic instability and volatility. Proactively analysing and preparing for worst-case scenarios means acting to anticipate disasters that may not happen, and persuading the public that such caution is worth the cost – both financially and in terms of disruption. The rest of the world, not just Hawaii, needs to wake up to this new and deeply challenging reality.”

In the Washington Post, columnist Eugene Robinson warns that “climate change came for Maui, and the rest of us are next”. He writes: “As individuals and as communities, we need to think more about worst-case scenarios and actively plan for them. We have an old hemlock tree in front of our house that’s near the end of its life span. I love it, but we’re going to have to take it down and plant a replacement – before a storm brings it down. Climate change is personal. Act accordingly.”

Finally, an editorial in the Los Angeles Times calls on people to “say goodbye to grass that’s only there for looks. California can’t afford to waste water”. And, in the Guardian, author Christy Lefteri discusses the Greek wildfires and argues that many still see “climate breakdown as a problem for the future”, and this must change for us to “move forward”. 

An editorial in the Sun says that the UK’s two main political parties are realising the country “will not be strong-armed into funding insanely hasty net-zero deadlines”. The newspaper says it has warned politician’s that they will “eventually hit a brick-wall of opposition” and that “impact is imminent”. The editorial criticises the cost of EVs, heat pumps and the potential for tax rises to fund net-zero commitments. Time and again the “Westminster elite” have assumed they can “bully a compliant public into footing a mind-blowing climate bill. Voters will not wear it”, it says. 

Elsewhere in the right-leaning UK press, climate-sceptic columnist Ross Clark argues in the Daily Telegraph that book festivals are now “political rallies for the liberal-Left”. His comments follow walkouts at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in protest of sponsor Baillie Giffords links to fossil fuel companies. He writes: “Do these authors really want all fossil fuel extraction to end tomorrow? If so, some may not be able to sell their books, the printing and distribution of which is still presumably reliant on some input, somewhere, from fossil fuels.” The protests are “just student union stuff”, he continues, “moral grandstanding employed to massage the egos of authors and influencers without achieving anything useful”.

In an interview in the Guardian, Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley argues that “change is needed” to support households with energy costs. Ahead of the price cap being set for the upcoming winter period, Brearley has queried whether the “very broad and crude” mechanism is fit for purpose. “The price cap was designed for a market that was much more stable – so, pre-2020 – and it worked quite well,” says Brearley. “But in this volatile market, the price cap has costs as well as benefits, so we would welcome a debate on the future of pricing regulation.” Asked about potential delays to UK renewable energy developers connecting their projects to the grid and criticism of Ofgem for failure to keep pace with substantial changes to the industry, Brearley says: “As a regulator, without a doubt, we’ve had a whole lot more to do, and a market that was very different from the one we envisaged in 2020…But now, as the market stabilises, we need to think hard – with the industry – about what is the right market for the future.”

A new research paper has created “an original codebook for classifying ad hominem arguments made by climate contrarians”. It draws on 55 contrarian blogs and 15 conservative thinktank websites published in English between 2008 and 2020 to investigate the most common ways that climate sceptics make ad hominem – or unnecessarily personal – attacks against climate scientists and policymakers. The authors say: “Bias attacks, which entail accusing climate scientists of political partisanship or having an ideological agenda, were the most common form of contrarian ad hominem attack. The dominance of bias attacks can be explained by their strong relevance for scientific credibility.”