Heatwaves across many parts of Europe are sparking wildfires in Portugal, Spain and France, Reuters reports. It says: “With human-caused climate change triggering droughts, the number of extreme wildfires is expected to increase 30% within the next 28 years, according to a February 2022 UN report.” A second Reuters article reports on wildfires in Turkey. Associated Press reports on a “spate” of wildfires “scorching parts of Europe” in Portugal, Spain, Croatia, France and Turkey, saying the events are coming “amid an unusual heatwave that authorities are linking to climate change”. It adds: “European Union officials issued a warning last week that climate change is behind the extremely dry and hot summer so far on the continent, urging local authorities to brace for wildfires.” The Independent also has the story. Metro reports on the “desperate battle to save homes in Europe as temperatures head towards 50C”. It adds: “Europe is in the grips of a brutal ‘heat dome’ that could shatter temperature records across the continent.” The Daily Telegraph reports that drought in Germany has left the River Rhine “on the brink of being closed to shipping traffic as water levels plunge towards ‘extreme’ lows”.

Bloomberg has a feature titled: “Heatwaves across Europe show dangers of weakening climate goals.” Politico carries a profile of Greek climate minister Christos Stylianides, who it says is “fight[ing] fires – and the system”.

A “danger to life” heat warning has been extended by the UK’s Met Office, the Independent reports, with the “amber extreme heat alert” covering “nearly all of England and eastern Wales” now in force from midnight on Saturday until the same time on Tuesday. It continues: “With the NHS already under pressure as the relentless heat drives more people to A&E, the Met Office has warned the impact on people and infrastructure will be widespread – with health consequences not merely limited to at-risk individuals.” The paper says heatwaves “are the deadliest extreme weather event in the UK…scientists have warned that such events will only become more frequent and severe as a result of climate breakdown”. Press Association says the UK “is set to swelter in soaring temperatures and ‘tropical’ nights as the heatwave grips early next week, forecasters are warning”. It adds: “Heatwaves have been made hotter, longer and more frequent by climate change, and experts have warned of the need to adapt homes, cities and infrastructure in the UK for a future of more intense – and deadly – summer heat.” In a frontpage story the Daily Telegraph reports water companies asking customers to only use water for “essential purposes”, adding that the UK’s current heatwave is “put[ting] pressure on emergency services”. It quotes health minister Maria Caulfield saying ambulance services are facing “the sort of pressures we would normally expect to see in winter” and adds: “Every ambulance service in England is now on the highest level of alert as the Met Office extended a weather warning for extreme heat, with dangerously hot conditions now expected on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.” The Guardian reports that London mayor Sadiq Khan has “triggered a severe weather emergency response in the capital – a move typically activated in winter”. Another Daily Telegraph story says events including food markets, carnivals and fun runs have been cancelled across the UK due to extreme heat.

Another Independent article says the UK record high temperature could be broken next week “less than three years after it was set”. The article looks back to the summer of 1911, which it says held the record for 80 years, before being broken in 1990, 2015, 2019 and 2020. In related news, the Independent reports that “leading UK scientists” are calling for heatwaves to be given names, to raise awareness in the same way as for storms. The paper says: “A Met Office spokesman said storms appear on a chart and can be tracked with satellite pictures, whereas the boundaries of heatwaves are much more blurred. The Met Office already issues heat health alerts, and last year introduced the system of heat warnings, he said. Amber warnings must appear on television forecasters’ maps.” MailOnline also has the story.

Meanwhile, the Independent reports that “thousands on Isle of Sheppey [are] still without water for second day during the heatwave”. MailOnline reports on the areas across England “set to be hardest hit by heatwaves in coming years”. The i newspaper asks “why can’t the UK cope with the heatwave?” Another MailOnline article says: “How the UK heatwave could pave the way for more BRITISH wines.”

With the process of replacing Boris Johnson as UK prime minister now well underway, the Independent asks “how do the frontrunners’ climate credentials shape up?”. It begins by noting that all Conservative leadership candidates “signed up to a manifesto [in 2019] that pledged to reach net-zero by 2050”. The paper then runs down the “top three contenders”, namely: former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who has “kept quiet on net-zero since launching his leadership campaign” and “has been described as ‘reasonably good’ at marshalling green finance for net-zero but has also been accused of blocking green policies”; Penny Mordaunt, who has “indicated her support for the transition to net-zero…But she has also said she would slash VAT on fuel by half.” It adds that last year she “reportedly accepted a £10,000 donation from a leading climate change sceptic and founder of the UK’s influential climate change science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation.”; and foreign secretary Liz Truss, who “pledged on Wednesday to halt green levies on energy bills”. (Another Independent article reports: “Foreign secretary wants to look again at ‘best way of delivering net-zero’.” BusinessGreen has a “guide to the Tory leadership hopefuls’ green credentials”. It says of Sunak: “He is not a climate sceptic and his opposition to more ambitious decarbonisation projects has always seemed to be more of a function of his short termist fiscal conservativism than any ideological opposition to action on the environment. It is notable that he has been endorsed by Grant Shapps, who was one of the more vocal supporters of the net-zero transition in the last Cabinet, and has today secured the backing of Chris Skidmore, founder of the Net Zero Support Group of Conservative MPs.” On Mordaunt, it says she was “largely silent on climate and environmental issues” as defence secretary. On Truss, it says: “Truss is not a climate sceptic, but nor has she advocated publicly for bolder climate action and her small state ideological impulses have made her a natural ally of some of those Tory MPs who have pushed for a rolling back of environmental policies.”

DeSmog also has a rundown of the Tory leadership hopefuls’ climate credentials, saying “few are green champions”. The Times has a profile of one candidate, Kemi Badenoch: “Some on the left of the party are concerned that a Badenoch premiership might spell the end of the UK’s net-zero commitments…But when questioned her position is more nuanced.” It quotes her saying: “My issue isn’t that 2050 is the right or wrong target…I just think we need to change how we talk about it.” On Twitter, Skidmore said he asked all of the candidates for their views on net-zero last night and that Sunak, Mordaunt and Truss all supported net-zero by 2050, while Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat would “move [it] back” and Badenoch would “change concept of [the] target”.

Separately, BusinessGreen reports that former Conservative prime minister Theresa May has “urge[d] candidates to double down on climate action to tackle cost of living crisis”. Another BusinessGreen article reports that in an open letter to the candidates, the UK’s “leading business groups stresse[d] green policies can deliver environmental, energy security and economic benefits”. The Independent also reports on the letter to candidates. (The Daily Telegraph reports separately: “Hundreds of thousands of households with solar panels will save an estimated £600m on their energy bills this year after a scramble to beat the cost of living crisis. Builders have fitted the highest number of small-scale panel installations in seven years as homeowners seek to protect themselves from a sharp rise in gas and electricity costs.”)

Meanwhile, the Big Issue reports on “the vital climate change briefing that Tory leadership candidates didn’t attend”. It says the briefing was led by the UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and that all candidates “reportedly failed to attend” it. The Guardian also reports on the briefing, saying Vallance “showed similar slides to those Boris Johnson said gave him ‘road to Damascus moment’ on climate”. (Those slides were first reported by Carbon Brief.)

The Times reports that German regions are at risk of “becoming uninhabitable as climate change brings more extreme rainfall and flooding”, a senior official has warned. Ralph Tiesler, the head of Germany’s civil protection agency, is quoted in the article saying that some areas, especially around the coastline, would, in the end, no longer be safe to live in. He said it was possible that “climate refugees” could ultimately be forced to abandon parts of the country, adds the newspaper. Die Welt also quotes Tiesler calling for a new awareness of the crisis among the population. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) carries a story with a quote from German environment minister Steffi Lemke saying climate change is leading to more hot days, which “sometimes pose a threat to us humans and nature”.

Meanwhile, ABC News reports a new package of climate measures unveiled in Germany on Wednesday to close the emissions gap in the transport and housing sectors as part of the country’s plan to become carbon neutral by 2045. It adds that transport minister Volker Wissing said his department planned to “boost the installation of electric vehicle charging stations, expand public transport and build more bicycle lanes in the hopes that people will leave their gasoline-powered cars at home”. However, Wissing is against introducing a highway speed limit which is supported by environmental activists, the publication says. It adds that Greenpeace called the plans “nebulous” and said a general speed limit would achieve concrete emissions cuts. EurActiv adds that the strategy aims to “protect people and their livelihoods as well as the adaptability and resilience of communities against catastrophic events”. Reuters also has a story adding that “in construction, the emergency plan would oblige all newly installed heating systems in Germany to be operated with 65% renewable energy from 2024”.

In more energy news, the Daily Telegraph reports that some German households will be “forced to heat their homes with wood instead of gas as Russia turns off the taps, according to dire warnings from analysts”. Finally, Politico reports that the prospect of gas shortages this winter has triggered a discussion over nuclear power within Germany’s governing coalition.

Congressional Democrats in the US are “pushing for a deal on climate spending before the August recess, reports the Hill, adding that Senator Joe Manchin (the West Virginia Democrat with financial ties to the coal industry) has “raise[d] renewed concerns”. Another article from the Hill reports: “Democrats are scrambling to secure a deal to mitigate climate change as their window for an agreement is rapidly closing. Key lawmakers say they’re still working to sell [Manchin] on a slate of clean energy tax credits and a fee on methane emissions.” The Independent reports: “More than 200 congressional staffers urge Pelosi and Schumer to get critical climate bill over the finish line.”

In his weekly column for the Atlantic, Robinson Meyer writes: “At this point, the ideal climate bill is out of the picture.” He writes: “All the negotiations are still under wraps, but Manchin’s influence and his demonstrated willingness to veto bills will very likely warp the final product. Given the senator’s background, his concerns about energy security, and his literal ownership of a coal-trading company, it isn’t inconceivable that the bill could even boost some fossil-fuel supplies.” Meyer adds: “But, at this point, the right comparison for a climate bill is not BBB [the planned build back better bill] – it’s nothing. So rather than holding up the bill to a dead policy, we should ask these two questions instead: Will this new bill reduce American emissions compared with doing nothing at all? And will it put the world closer to decarbonising?”

In other news from the US, the Hill reports that Texas has been “hit with second power conservation request this week as temperatures hit triple digits”.

The UN climate champion for Egypt, Mahmoud Mohieldin, has said the upcoming COP27 UN climate talks in Egypt in November need to focus on “adapting to life in a changing climate and grappl[ing] with finance for loss and damage”, the Guardian reports. It says the envoy was speaking at an event in Sydney, Australia. DownToEarth carries an interview with Mohamed Nasr, ambassador of Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the COP27 summit. It quotes him saying: “The most important thing is that they [the Parties] have to speak out and identify what they are asking for clearly. You need to go beyond general principles – such as asking for a ‘balance’, or that ‘adaptation is important’ – to what exactly you want to see.” Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Alok Sharma, the Conservative MP who is COP26 president, “will remain in his post to lead international climate negotiations for the next few crucial months, despite the turmoil among his Downing Street neighbours”.

Elsewhere, Reuters reports under the headline: “Emerging nations warn high energy costs could threaten emissions targets.” It says: “Indonesia and India on Thursday underscored a call by emerging nations for more climate change financing, warning that rising energy prices due to the Ukraine war would make it difficult for countries to cut emissions.” (Another Reuters article says almost two-thirds of the new renewable power added last year “had lower costs than the cheapest coal-fired power plants in G20 countries”, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.)

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, on Tuesday issued the 14th five-year plan for “new urbanisation implementation”, reports the Paper, a Shanghai-based outlet. The plan mentions: promoting “low carbon production and life”; “anchoring” the carbon-peaking and carbon-neutrality targets; “orderly guiding” non-fossil energy consumption and promoting “electricity instead of coal, gas instead of coal”; developing decentralised energy, such as rooftop photovoltaic; promoting clean heating methods, such as cogeneration and heat pumps according to “local conditions”. It also calls for promotion of “green and low-carbon transformation in industry, construction, transportation and other fields”…and “increase the proportion of new energy vehicles (NEV) in urban public transport to 72% by 2025”.

Meanwhile, IN-EN.com, a Beijing-based website on energy, writes that the ministry of housing and urban-rural development and the NDRC issued a plan yesterday on “carbon peaking for urban and rural construction”. The plan proposes that: “by 2030, carbon emissions in urban and rural construction will reach a peak”; the application of renewable energy should be “more adequate”; the green and low-carbon transformation of urban and rural construction should see “positive progress”; by 2025, the photovoltaic coverage of public buildings and factories should “reach 50%”. Separately, the ministry of industry and information technology has released a product directory to help “strengthen the power management of the demand-side for industrial sectors”, reports the state news agency Xinhua.

Elsewhere, Associated Press reports that flooding and extreme high temperatures have caused “multiple deaths in eastern China as summer heat descends earlier than usual”. The article quotes experts saying “such extreme weather events [like floods] are becoming more likely because of climate change. Warmer air can store more water, leading to bigger cloudbursts when it’s released.” Reuters says “over 90 red alerts” for high temperatures have been issued across China’s “vast” and densely populated Yangtze River basin. The newswire says heatwaves have affected 900 million of China’s population of 1.4 billion over the past month, citing the National Climate Center, with the city of Yanjin reaching a record 44C, according to state television. It adds: “The hashtag #heatstroke was trending on social media with 2.45 million views on the Weibo platform, with discussions ranging from people being admitted to hospital to the detrimental effects of long-term heat exposure.”

Finally, Xinhua carries an article which focuses on the “new breakthroughs” made by the Chinese scientific research in the Mt Everest region (more commonly called as “Qomolangma” by Chinese) since April 2022. The article quotes Piao Shilong, an academician and researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, as well as the divisional leader of the Chinese Everest scientific research: “The research result helps to accurately estimate the carbon source and sink function of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau ecosystem and provides data to support the achievement of the carbon neutrality goal.”

In a comment for the i newspaper, Conservative peer Lord Zac Goldsmith writes of the contest to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister that there are “some obvious commitments I hope candidates will be willing to make”. Goldsmith promotes Johnson’s environmental record and says: “The UK is winning the argument that we cannot tackle poverty, climate, food security or any number of other challenges unless we mend our relationship with nature…So it matters where the candidates for the Conservative leadership stand. But as we assess their reliability, it would be a mistake to focus purely on ‘net-zero’ because, without wanting to sound complacent, this is one area where candidates will have a minimal impact before the next election. The market is racing ahead of the politics, and the clean energy transition is inevitable regardless of who takes over…Nations know that the clean energy transition is where jobs, growth and security are. It is not realistic to imagine the UK wanting to stand alone, clinging to a system that is becoming obsolete. But there is nothing inevitable about nature recovery.” Goldsmith then outlines the pledges he is looking for, including to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 and “nature-friendly farming”.

Elsewhere, the head of communications for the Conservative Environment Network, Cameron Smith, writes for the organisation’s blog on “why the next Tory leader will want to be green”. He says: “Environmentalism is not skin-deep in the Conservative Party; it’s a core tenet of conservatism.” Smith adds: “If the next leader weakened net zero, 27% of the party’s voters say they would be less likely to back it at the next general election.”

An editorial in the Guardian says Russian president Vladimir Putin is “seek[ing] to make the west pay for its support for Ukraine…[and] has intensified its squeeze on gas exports to Europe…Matters could get worse.” It continues: “A freezing winter, soaring inflation and the wider cost of living crisis could tip millions of families over the edge, undermining support for sanctions on Russia and western solidarity with Ukraine…A concerted response is therefore urgently required.” This, says the editorial, should see governments “above all…accelerate the pace of transition to renewables and promote energy efficiency”, but it adds that this will take time and in the short term “a pandemic-style sense of collective solidarity will need to be fostered. It will not come cheap.”

For the Daily Telegraph, international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes under the headline: “Putin may cut off oil as well as gas to cripple Europe.” He says Putin is attempting to “force the West to the table on Russian strategic terms”. In related news, Reuters reports that the European Commission will publish a plan on 20 July that it says “will suggest countries launch financial incentives for companies to cut gas use, use state aid to encourage industries and power plants to switch to other fuels, and roll out info”. It says the aim of the plan is to “save gas now and stockpile supply for winter”. Another Reuters article say members of the European Parliament energy committee “supported more ambitious EU targets to save energy and expand renewable power on Wednesday, viewed as key to ending Europe’s reliance on Russian gas”.

The LSE Grantham Research Institute’s policy director Bob Ward writes that “the present heatwave demonstrates the risks of denying the reality of man-made climate change”, adding that “a clear understanding of climate change, and the cause of the energy crisis, is critical”. In responding to Times’ columnist Melanie Phillips who blamed “Sri Lanka’s collapse into violence and chaos” on “green dogma”, Ward states that “rocketing wholesale prices of oil and natural gas on international markets have played a part in the island nation’s economic crisis”. He adds that “it is far too simplistic to suggest” that a ban on import of chemical fertilisers between April to November “is the main cause of the bloody insurrection sweeping the country”. Ward states that fossil fuel supplies “have failed to match the increase in energy demand” after the pandemic and sanctions on Russian exports “have added to price volatility”. If the UK, along with other fossil fuel importers, “had moved faster towards net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases through improvements in energy efficiency, deployment of domestic renewables and faster rollout of electric vehicles”, he says that “they would not be suffering the same level of crisis now.” He concludes: “We would be discarding the values of the Enlightenment if we pretend that man-made climate change does not exist because of a dogmatic ideological aversion to government intervention in our lives.”

In a letter to the Times debunking Phillips’ column, Prof Richard Betts from the Met Office writes that she “makes incorrect and misleading claims about scientific evidence for human-caused climate change”. According to Betts, “there is no surprise, let alone ‘embarrassment’, that the atmosphere has continued to do what is expected by science”.

In a comment for the Financial Times, chair of an S&P Global study on copper, Daniel Yergin, writes on the the “key role” of the metal in the energy transition. He says: “EVs, charging infrastructure, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and batteries…all require much more copper than their conventional hydrocarbon-based counterparts.” According to Yergin, new copper mines take years to start producing and “a host of operational challenges confront future copper supply”. Although “substitutes will be found” and recycling “will certainly…accelerate”, Yergin concludes: “Unless solutions are found quickly, which will be challenging, insufficient supply of minerals [including copper] risks short-circuiting the drive to achieve net-zero by 2050.”

A feature in the Big Issue says it “probably hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s very, very hot” across most of Europe and adds that the “urban heat island” effect means cities “can be as much as 10C hotter than surrounding areas during a heatwave”. The piece goes on to list how “some cities are coming up with ways to deal with extreme weather, from planting more street trees to ‘cool spot’ maps for the public”. The Guardian has a feature on the “urgent steps we need to take to cool our sweltering cities”, with options such as whitewash roofs. Bloomberg reports that high temperatures are boosting the use of air conditioning in UK cities “threatening to worsen an energy crisis in a country where homes and businesses are struggling with gas and power bills”.

Elsewhere, Climate Home News carries a guest article titled: “Heat and humidity gets dangerous to health sooner than most people realise.”

Dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) levels in the Southern Ocean decreased over the 1990s and 2000s, but have increased – particularly in the upper ocean – since the 2010s, new research finds. The authors present a “fast and computationally inexpensive” machine learning model, which can estimate DIC levels in the Southern Ocean at depths of up to 4km only using data available at the ocean surface. “While the near-surface decrease in DIC concentrations would enhance atmospheric CO2 uptake continuing the previously-found trends, weakened connectivity between surface and deep layers and build-up of DIC in deep waters could reduce the ocean’s carbon storage potential,” the study finds.