In a frontpage story, the Observer reports that Keir Starmer’s Labour government has unveiled plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more UK homes fitted with solar panels. In addition, the newspaper says, energy secretary Ed Miliband has taken “the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers”. It adds: “The three sites alone – Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, Sunnica’s energy farm on the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border and Mallard Pass on the border between Lincolnshire and Rutland – will deliver about two-thirds of the solar energy installed on rooftops and on the ground in the whole of last year.” Ahead of Wednesday’s king’s speech, ministers are working with the building industry to make it easier to buy new homes with panels installed or install them on existing ones, the Observer says. It quotes Miliband, who said: “I want to unleash a UK solar rooftop revolution. We will encourage builders and homeowners in whatever way we can to deliver this win-win technology to millions of addresses in the UK so people can provide their own electricity, cut their bills and at the same time help fight climate change.” The Press Association quotes the response from shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho, who said: “It’s clear that Ed Miliband has more interest in listening to the demands of Just Stop Oil than the needs of rural communities, even going as far as to overrule an expert examining authority to impose a large-scale solar farm in one case.” Renews notes that “a decision on Sunnica had initially been due last September, but the call was delayed several times by [Coutinho], who also pushed back decision deadlines for Mallard Pass”.

BBC News reports on two of the three solar farms approved – Mallard Pass and Sunnica. The former is a 2,000-acre project that will provide “enough clean energy to power some 92,000 homes”, the outlet says, while the latter is a 2,500-acre farm that “could power 172,000 homes and create 1,500 jobs during construction, with 27 full-time jobs to run it”. The Sunday Telegraph and Daily Mail lead their coverage with concerns that solar panels on farmland could – to quote the latter – “endanger Britain’s food security”. The Sunday Telegraph quotes John Constable, without mentioning he is energy editor of the campaign arm of the climate-sceptic lobby group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Constable says that “food security matters – why not let the land make good food rather than second or third-rate electricity?” Sky News notes that, “for the Sunnica project, it is said Miliband believes the need for decarbonised power ‘outweighs the effectively permanent loss of food production’”. (A Carbon Brief factcheck from 2022 found that ground-mounted solar panels currently cover just 0.1% of all land in the UK. By comparison, golf courses cover five times as much.) Andrew Sinclair, BBC News political editor for the east of England, says the decision on the Sunnica project “has sent a signal”, adding: “The east of England is at the forefront of the green energy revolution and with plans in the pipeline for more solar farms, pylons and Sizewell C nuclear power station, this is unlikely to be the last time that the government ruffles feathers in the region.” BBC News also reports on the reaction from those who campaigned against the Sunnica project. And an Observer analysis piece looks at the “new set of challenges” brought by renewables expansion.

 In other UK news, BBC News reports that Scottish secretary Ian Murray has promised that UK and Scottish government ministers will adopt a “one-team approach” to securing a future for Grangemouth oil refinery. The outlet notes: “Around £1.5m of funding, paid for by both governments, has been allocated to producing a report exploring options for the site. Ministers want to consider longer-term opportunities for Grangemouth that involve low carbon industries.“ The Daily Telegraph reports that Miliband’s “nuclear ambitions” have been dealt a blow by the potential closure of Sheffield University’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – the “state-backed nuclear laboratory at the heart of Britain’s proposed mini-reactor revolution”. BBC News also has the story. The Guardian looks at whether Labour will “get behind the switch” from the “old reliance on coal” for steelmaking to electric arc furnaces. BBC News reports that Mike Starkie, a former Conservative mayor of Copeland in Cumbria, has said the government’s decision not to defend two legal challenges against a new coalmine in Whitehaven was “disappointing”. BBC News also reports that Mark Jenkinson, a former Conservative MP, has warned that rule changes to allow more onshore wind turbines could mean “open season” for developers in Cumbria. Mail Online reports that a Conservative MP has challenged Keir Starmer to make clear that plans for new onshore wind farms are unconnected to the millions of pounds donated to Labour from Ecotricity, a green energy supplier founded by millionaire Dale Vince. Saturday’s Daily Mail covers an academic study on suitable sites in the UK for wind turbines and uses it to argue that “thousands of onshore wind turbines could go up across the country and not just in sparsely populated rural areas under a Labour government led pursuit of net-zero”. And Mail Online also covers the claims of a computer scientist who says that “offshore wind kills whales”.

Finally, there are numerous previews of tomorrow’s king’s speech, which is expected to include “more than 35 bills”, says Sky News, including those on “housebuilding, improving transport, increasing jobs and securing clean energy”. The Financial Times says Labour will outline legislation to “set up the centrepiece of its green energy plans – GB Energy, a new state-owned energy investor that will be based in Scotland and will take stakes in renewable energy and nuclear projects”. The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Independent, Daily Mirror and BBC News all have previews.

“Devastating rains” have hit Chongqing municipality in south-west China, putting the Three Gorges Dam on “high alert for a new round of flooding”, says Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). “Heavy rainfall” in Chongqing’s Dianjiang county has caused at least six casualties, damaging roads and disrupting rail travel. The article does not mention climate change. Business newspaper Caixin has posted a photo gallery of the floodwaters “swamp[ing] streets and buildings”. State-run newspaper China Daily reports that Beijing’s Capital and Daxing airports have faced “heavy rainfall”. Jiemian says that, according to the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management, as of 12 July, 20.8m people nationwide have been affected by flooding, with 86 people reported killed or missing this year. The article says that, in 2024, the sown area for summer grain remained “stable” and the yield per unit area has “increased”. State news agency Xinhua also says that, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, China attained a “bumper summer grain harvest” in 2024. 

Meanwhile, business outlet Yicai says that China’s State Grid has opened the country’s “largest demonstration zone” for vehicle-to-grid technology, turning electric vehicles (EV) into “mobile power banks”. Industry newspaper International Energy Net says that, by 2025, China aims to “initially” establish and “improve the technical standards system” for vehicle-to-grid interaction and to “fully implement and optimise the time-of-use pricing policy for peak and off-peak charging”. State-run newspaper China Daily reports that approximately 24.8m green power certificates, equivalent to 24.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, were traded in the last week of June at the Guangzhou Power Exchange Center, representing the “largest single-batch transaction” of green power certificates in China until now. Xinhua reports that China’s “first-ever” carbon-sink trading project in a national park’s tropical rainforest has been “transacted” in Hainan province. 

Elsewhere, Shanghai-based newspaper the Paper carries a commentary by a representative of the China Development Institute thinktank, who writes that “direct supply of green power” – which refers to “providing green power directly to industrial parks, agricultural industrial parks, and other areas through distributed renewable energy projects” – can help deal with the carbon “barrier” posed by the EU on exports of batteries. Finally, the SCMP publishes a commentary by the Asia Global Institute’s Andrew Sheng arguing that “​if leading central banks can grow their balance sheets by billions of dollars during the pandemic, they can do the same to fight global warming”. 

California’s wildfire season is “off to a ferocious start”, the Guardian reports, with the state’s top wildfire official saying that fires have already burned through five times the average amount of land for this time of year. Speaking at a press conference last week, the director of the California department of forestry and fire protection said: “We are not just in a fire season, we are in a fire year”, the newspaper reports. It continues: “Authorities across the US west have warned of the rising risk of wildfires amid a protracted heatwave that has dried out the landscape and smashed temperatures records from California to Oregon to Nevada…An abundantly wet winter has left landscapes across California coated in grasses that quickly dried as the weather warmed, creating abundant fuel for fast-burning brush fires. The article also quotes California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who said: “Climate change is real…Those extremes are here present every day in the great state of California.” The New York Times says that 3,543 wildfires have broken out in California so far this year, burning more than 207,000 acres, compared with the five-year average of 38,000 acres”. The Washington Post reports that wildfires in the state “have led to the first death” of the season, while “wind-whipped flames in Arizona have forced hundreds to flee from what tribal leaders are calling the ‘most serious’ wildfire on their reservation in decades”. The Los Angeles Times also reports on the death in California.

In other wildfire news, the New York Times reports that while Brazil is still weeks away from its traditional fire season, “hundreds of blazes, fanned by searing temperatures, are already laying waste to the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, and to parts of the Amazon rainforest”. It adds: “Scientists say the burning of such vast swathes of land may represent a new normal under rising global temperatures and uneven rain, making efforts to save some of the world’s most important ecosystems much harder.” And Reuters reports that the eastern Canadian community of Labrador City was ordered evacuated on Friday in the face of an encroaching wildfire.

The UK Science Museum has ended its sponsorship deal with the oil company Equinor “over its failure to lower its carbon emissions sufficiently”, reports the Times. Sir Ian Blatchford, the museum’s director, told the Norwegian state-owned energy firm in a series of emails that it was in breach of the museum’s pledge to ensure its sponsors complied with the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C, the newspaper explains. It continues: “Equinor had sponsored the London museum’s interactive Wonderlab since 2016, but the Science Museum confirmed that the relationship is now coming to an end…The sponsorship deal had been controversial because Equinor owns Rosebank, the biggest undeveloped oil and gas field in the North Sea, which the government gave approval to develop last year. The plan has faced widespread criticism because of its impact on climate change.” Equinor had “also inserted a clause into the contract preventing staff from making comments that could be seen as ‘discrediting or damaging the goodwill or reputation’ of the company”, the Daily Telegraph notes. The emails between Blatchford and Equinor were disclosed under Freedom of Information legislation and shared with the Observer.

The UK’s energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband is to “take personal control” of the UK’s negotiations at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan this November, reports the Guardian. The newspaper says the move is in “stark contrast” to the previous government, in which “COP was largely left to junior ministers, despite the importance and far-reaching nature of the negotiations”. Senior figures in climate diplomacy “welcomed the move and said UK leadership would be vital to what is expected to be a tricky and fraught UN climate summit this year”, the article says. It quotes Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who presided over the Paris agreement, who said: “Ed Miliband has proven experience at COPs and all matters related to those multilateral negotiations. Throughout 14 years he has kept his vigilant eye on the ups and downs, and will not need to start from scratch at all.” Todd Stern, a former US climate envoy under Barack Obama, said: “This makes a ton of sense. [Miliband] is a real diplomat, he understands diplomacy and has a skilled understanding of the issues. The UK can play an important role at this point, in working with Europe, the US and the developed world and the developing world.”

The German government has unveiled an “energy emergency plan” to replace coal with new and existing gas power plants in order to supplement wind and solar energy deficiencies, reports Die Welt. Despite emphasising a shift to renewables, experts caution that the proposed gas capacity is “insufficient”, the newspaper continues. It adds that Germany plans to retain 14 gigawatts (GW) of coal as a cheaper backup, alongside efforts to build 12.5GW of new power capacity and 500 megawatts (MW) of long-term storage, transitioning to hydrogen over time. Challenges include uncertainty over the availability and cost of “green hydrogen”, plus how best to enhance flexibility through digitalisation and manage the integration of smaller producers, such as biogas, into the energy grid, details the newspaper. In addition, German economy minister Robert Habeck wants to “reimburse companies for the additional costs incurred when they switch to climate-friendly production methods”, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The offer is “tempting”, notes the newspaper, as the government wants to reimburse up to 15 years of transition costs from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF), which is mainly funded by revenue from the carbon price. 

Meanwhile, Die Zeit looks at the significant expansion of wind energy on federal land in Thuringia. The state’s energy ministry reports ongoing approval processes for an additional 135 turbines across 26 municipalities, which compares to Thuringia’s current 900 operational wind turbines. The outlet explains that the state’s new Wind Energy Participation Act, recently passed by parliament, aims to further boost wind energy development by financially benefiting municipalities hosting wind projects with incentives tied to electricity generation.

Finally, Deutsche Welle has a feature on sandstorms. They are “powerful weather phenomena”, characterised by dense clouds of sand and dust, originating from arid regions like the Sahara Desert, “exacerbated by human activities like land mismanagement and climate change, and prompting mitigation efforts such as soil conservation and sustainable land use practices”.  

News reports of a bridge in Manhattan that malfunctioned this week because of extreme heat is “evidence of one of the central truths of our time, and one that is becoming more and more apparent every day: we have built our world for a climate that no longer exists”, writes journalist Jeff Goodell for CNN. He points to other examples, including a windstorm in Houston that knocked out power for a million people and heatwaves meaning it is too hot for firefighters to tackle Californian wildfires without risking heatstroke, as “danger signs of old-world infrastructure”. He continues: “And it’s not just infrastructure that is maladapted to our rapidly warming world. Our economic systems and cultural lives are out of sync, too. The summer Olympics (and American football) become dangerous games in 100F [38C] heat. The insurance business was not structured to deal with permanent flooding from sea level rise. Religious pilgrimages, such as the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, during which more than 1,300 people died amid blistering temperatures last month, are not supposed to be essentially death marches.” It is “tempting to believe that we can adapt to all these changes with better technology”, Goodell says. For example, he says, air conditioning is “becoming a survival tool for many people in ever-hotter climates, but it is not a magic fix for a superheated world”. More than 750 million people on the planet “don’t even have access to electricity, much less AC”, he notes, adding that “we are not going to air condition” the ocean, forests or fields where crops are grown. He concludes: “In the end, addressing the climate crisis is not about building better technology. It’s much bigger than that. We need to rebuild our world. Fast-rising temperatures and more extreme weather are forcing us to rethink everything about how we live – where we get our energy, how we grow our food, how we build our cities, and, mostly importantly, who we vote for. The sooner we stop clinging to the old ways and focus on building a smarter, more sustainable, more equitable future for everyone, the better off we – and every living thing on this planet – will be.”

In related news, there is continued coverage of the record-breaking heat hitting the US. The Guardian says the heatwave “is now moving east into the midwest and south-east, as millions of Americans have been under a heat alert at some point in the past week”. It notes that more than 245 million Americans “are expected to experience 90F [32C] temperatures between Sunday and Wednesday this week, with at least 30 million to experience temperatures of 100F [38C] or higher”. The New York Times reports that “burns from scorching-hot sidewalks and roads are rising, and can be fatal”. The Associated Press says that “a dangerously hot summer is shaping up in the US west, with heat suspected in dozens of recent deaths”. And the Washington Post reports that “high outdoor temperatures, rising climate costs and humidity are all contributing to higher air-conditioning bills”.

In an editorial, the Daily Telegraph responds to the approval of three new solar farm projects in the UK, arguing that the UK’s new energy secretary Ed Miliband is “playing fast and loose with the country’s energy and food security”. The newspaper, which has a history of promoting misinformation about climate science and net-zero policies, also repeats its claim that Miliband has “ordered an immediate halt to new licences to extract oil and gas in the North Sea”, despite the story being described by a government spokesperson on Friday as a “complete fabrication”. The newspaper says that Miliband “is right that nationally important infrastructure schemes have been hampered by planning hold-ups and local objections”, but it says this should apply to fracking projects, rather than renewables. It concludes: “What matters is not some macho demonstration of his ability to make quick decisions but to make the right ones in the long-term interests of the country. Sacrificing agricultural land on the altar of net-zero is not among them. The prime minister needs to rein [Miliband] in before he does further damage.” Also in the Daily Telegraph, assistant editor Jeremy Warner criticises Miliband for not showing sufficient “economic realism”.

Meanwhile, in the Daily Mail, Sir Simon Clarke – a minister under the premierships of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, who lost his seat in the recent general election – writes that “the benefits of climate action for our country are substantial, they are even more significant for our party in terms of winning elections”. Clarke argues that “instead of putting our environmental record front and centre, over the last year [the Conservatives] decided to undermine, undersell and largely ignore our environmental achievements”. He continues: “We rowed back on some green policies and framed net-zero as a burden to be managed, rather than an opportunity to be seized. And this was despite local and mayoral elections reinforcing the point that this strategy wasn’t shifting the polls. I now worry some will call on us to go even further in undermining our green credentials.” He writes that, although net-zero “might make a few Conservatives nervous”, the party “has to be honest that it means some targeted interventions and prudent spending now, to avoid much greater costs to our economy and security further down the line”.

A new review study on urban heat exposure finds that a 1C rise in temperature is linked to a 2.1% rise in “disease-related mortality” and a 1.1% rise in “morbidity”. The authors identified 188 studies about the impact of warm weather on health in urban settings, and carried out a “meta analysis” to collate their results. The study finds that “China’s urban population faced an elevated mortality risk compared to other countries”. The authors conclude that “widespread exposure to high temperatures amplifies health risks across various diseases, demographics, climates, and countries, with potential exacerbation under ongoing global warming”.