There is widespread ongoing coverage of the floods in Spain, where the Times says that Barcelona had a red alert warning in place on Monday, adding that the city’s El Prat airport saw dozens of flights cancelled or severely delayed. The Financial Times reports: “Leaders in Spain have begun a blame game over the country’s deadly flood disaster a day after angry survivors hurled mud and insults at politicians and the king as they visited the afflicted area.” It adds: “[T]he confirmed death toll rose to 217 [on Monday], making the floods Spain’s deadliest disaster in decades and one that scientists have linked to climate change.” The New York Times reports on the “angry debate” as “Spaniards have questioned why so many people were seemingly unprepared for the destruction or the violence of the storms”. Reuters says that dozens of people are still unaccounted for. The Guardian adds: “The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has described the floods as the worst natural disaster in Spain’s recent history and said all necessary resources would be mobilised to deal with its aftermath.” The South China Morning Post, the Independent, CNN, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, the Daily Mail, Times Live and El Pais also cover the ongoing flooding. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that activists in Edinburgh, Scotland, have “carried out a series of actions against SUV cars, saying they are acting in solidarity with the victims of the Valencia floods”.

Converting the UK’s electricity grid to “clean power” by 2030 could cut £27 per year off household energy bills, the Times says. It covers a report by the UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO), which it says finds that hitting the 2030 target is “achievable”, but will be a “huge challenge”, requiring an expansion of energy networks on a scale not seen since the 1960s. The newspaper adds that meeting the target could lower the wholesale electricity price by about £10 per megawatt-hour. Utility Week covers the report under the headline: “NESO: 2030 grid goal can be achieved without bill increases.” Bloomberg reports that according to NESO, the UK “may not need as much offshore wind as promised” to reach the target. The outlet continues: “The operator designed two strategies for reaching this decade’s target, describing each as ‘challenging, but realistic and cost-effective’. One relies heavily on the expansion of renewable power, primarily offshore wind. The other depends more on plants that use carbon capture and hydrogen to reduce emissions…The UK currently has about 15 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, and the NESO plans would add either 28 gigawatts or 35 gigawatts, depending on which one is implemented. That’s still short of Labour’s campaign promise to quadruple offshore wind.” Under the plans, nearly 1,000km of new power lines and 4,800km of undersea cables will need to be built, BBC News says. It adds: “The report points out that this would be more than double over five years what has been built in total in the last 10, requiring many projects to begin construction in the next 6 months to two years.” The Financial Times says that according to the report, “Britain’s fleet of gas-fired power plants will need to stay online as back-up in 2030 even if the government hits its target of decarbonising the power system by then”. BusinessGreen says the NESO report was commissioned by energy secretary Ed Miliband. The Guardian reports that the country is expected to become a net exporter of electricity by the end of the decade “at no extra cost to the energy system”. The Daily Telegraph and the Sun both carry misleading coverage of the NESO report, with the Sun falsely saying “people will have to restrict when they boil the kettle to help Ed Miliband hit his 2030 clean power targets”. A linked Sun editorial is headlined: “How long before Labour pull the plug on the demented fantasies of Ed Miliband?” It adds: “Charging towards a random deadline just five years away is ruinously insane.” [NESO’s report says the target is “achievable” and “will put Great Britain in a strong position”.]

In other UK news, the Guardian reports that plans for England’s biggest onshore windfarm will be submitted this week. Separately, the Guardian explains why it can take so many years to connect solar farms to the UK network. The Financial Times reports that “Keir Starmer’s cabinet is split over whether to allow a third runway at Heathrow”. And DeSmog reports on Kemi Badenoch’s views on climate change. It says: “The new leader of the opposition has regularly criticised the UK’s green ambitions” and describes herself as a “net-zero sceptic”.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on Monday it would file a lawsuit with the WTO against the EU’s tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), Reuters reports. The state-run newspaper Global Times says the MOFCOM’s move is to “safeguard the interests of the development of the EV industry and the global cooperation on green transformation”. This is the second lawsuit MOFCOM has filed to the WTO, the first complaint was regarding the EU’s “preliminary anti-subsidy measures against China-made EVs”, adds the newspaper. Another Reuters report says that China has urged France to push the EU “towards a solution acceptable to both the European and Chinese electric vehicle industries”. Politico also covers the news.

Separately, state news agency Xinhua reports that as of the end of September 2024, the number of EV charging points in China has reached 11.43m, showing a year-on-year increase of 49.6%, according to data from the National Energy Administration (NEA). Bloomberg quotes Kevin Xu, a tech investor and founder of Interconnected Capital based in the US, saying that Elon Musk could become “a key interlocutor between the US and China on many technology and trade matters in a second Trump administration”.

Meanwhile, an article by the state-run newspaper China Daily quotes the NEA saying that “the renewable energy generated across China last year was equivalent to a direct reduction of about 2.46bn tonnes of carbon emissions”. Chinese lawmakers are considering a “draft revision to the mineral resources law”, which will “further strengthen regulations concerning ecological restoration in mining areas”, Xinhua reports. China Daily also publishes a report under the title: “Green methanol route to nation’s carbon goal.”

Elsewhere, Reuters says that US tariffs will not stop the expansion of Chinese solar. US news outlet Politico carries an article titled: “Chinese companies use Biden’s climate law to expand their solar dominance.” The outlet says that Chinese solar manufacturers could receive “tax subsidies” by building factories locally under the Biden administration’s climate law, which it says was supposed to help the US “wrest control of clean energy supply chains away from China”.

Finally, Chinese newspaper Economic Information Daily publishes an article by Shen Xinfeng, economist from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, saying that “digital technology and green, low-carbon technology” have become the “two main driving forces in this wave of technological and industrial transformation”.

Leaked internal documents from the American Exploration & Production Council –  a group of 30 oil and gas producers – outline “detailed plans to kill off penalties for emitting methane” if Trump wins the election, the Guardian reports. The newspaper says: “The documents outline hopes for a Republican reconciliation bill to kill off the methane fee, as well as further legal action and ‘additional pressure on EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) politicals’ to achieve industry-friendly policies. Climate campaigners said the plan is evidence big oil will exert an outsized influence over Trump after he directly asked oil executives for $1bn in campaign donations during a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in April…The leaked documents, obtained by the research group Fieldnotes and first reported upon by the Washington Post, outline a comprehensive blueprint to overturn climate policies put in place during Joe Biden’s presidency.”

Meanwhile, as Americans head to the polls today, Climate Home News says it is “unclear” whether Trump could pull the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) if he wins the election. The outlet says: “Trump has promised to take the US out of the Paris climate agreement – as he did briefly during his first term in office – and is also reported to be under pressure to pull the US out of the UNFCCC for the first time if he becomes president. While leaving the Paris Agreement would be legally straightforward, legal experts are divided on whether Trump could withdraw the US from the UNFCCC without the approval of the US Senate and – if he did – how easy it would be for a future president to re-join.” Separately, Reuters reports that the strategy director of TotalEnergies “does not anticipate that Donald Trump would pull the US out of the Paris Agreement on climate change or undo Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) legislation if he became US president again”. Politico reports under the headline: “EU shrugs off Trump’s threats to scrap green handouts.” It says that “Trump may cut Europe out of America’s subsidy splurge, but EU industries aren’t seeing many benefits yet anyway”. The New York Times reports that “electric vehicles are a top-tier issue in Michigan,” where both Harris and Trump “have framed a vote for their opponent as a threat to the state’s auto industry”. Separately, the New York Times reports that “in a record, all but two US states are in drought”. The Daily Mail reports that Oklahoma is under a new tornado warning. 

The Canadian government has issued draft regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector Reuters reports. It says the rules would cap emissions at 35% below 2019 levels by 2030. The newswire adds: “Oil and gas is Canada’s highest-polluting industry and its emissions continue to rise, undercutting progress in many other parts of the economy. Ottawa will likely fall short of its commitment to reduce emissions by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2030 unless the oil and gas sector intensifies efforts to decarbonise.” The New York Times says the move has been “bitterly opposed by the energy industry and met with lukewarm support from some environmentalists who say the rules are not strict enough”.

Carbon Brief contributing editor and co-founder of World Weather Attribution, Friederike Otto, has penned a comment piece in the Guardian about the flooding in Spain. She notes that when warnings were sent out to Spanish people, they “did not include vital information on where to evacuate to and how”. She continues: “Clearly, Spain’s disaster systems need to improve. More widely, we need to ask some hard questions about international disaster funds – should the EU have funds for prevention, rather than cleaning up the mess after a disaster has struck? In my view, it absolutely has to increase funds and develop coordinated plans.” She argues that governments need to consider extreme weather in their building plans. For example, she says: “We need to give rivers space again, so that they have somewhere else to go, rather than into people’s homes.” An editorial in the Financial Times says the “inadequate response” to the flooding “highlights the lack of preparedness against extreme weather”. The newspaper says that the “tragedy” is a “reminder to politicians in Europe that climate preparedness is a pressing issue on the continent as well, not just in hotter areas closer to the equator”. It notes that Europe is heating at twice the global rate, and concludes: “The Spanish have paid a heavy price for the lack of preparedness. Global climate adaptation efforts must be given greater urgency, otherwise tragedies on this scale will only become more common.” A Times editorial says: “The deluge has exposed how quickly a dysfunctional state can crumble in the face of the kind of emergency that will become all too common if global warming predictions prove sound.” In other UK comment, Daily Telegraph technology journalist Andrew Orlowski has another article attacking Labour’s “brutal zero emission vehicle mandates”.

Azerbaijani researcher and women’s rights activist, Nargiz Mukhtarova, writes in Climate Home News that her country’s model of governance “has not only created grave climate and social justice issues, but it also offers a shadowy prospect for the country’s sustainable development”. Mukhtarova writes that her husband, Farid Mehralizada, was “forcibly detained” earlier this year, given charges that were “not supported by firm or credible evidence”, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. She says that Mehralizada is “a renowned economist who has rigorously advocated for social justice and climate-friendly policies”, and is “known for his critical analysis of Azerbaijan’s dependence on oil and gas”.  She says that Mehralizada’s case is “not an isolated one”, and explains that “what happened to Farid is reflective of risks faced by all activists and experts advocating for climate justice and social welfare in Azerbaijan”. She concludes that “COP29 attendees should recognise these struggles – and extend their solidarity with those who have become victims”.

Separately, BusinessGreen features editor Cecilia Keating writes that the “nature finance negotiations flopped” at the COP16 UN biodiversity summit that ended abruptly over the weekend. And in the Conversation, Prof Harriet Bulkeley from Durham University writes that COP16 has ended “with no clear path ahead”.

In other comment, Mark Gongloff – a Bloomberg opinion editor and columnist covering climate change – writes that if the leaders of America’s Green party “truly cared about the climate, they would have long ago pulled their vanity 2024 presidential candidate from the ballot”. And activist Saad Amer and US representative Ro Khanna argue in Rolling Stone that “polls are underestimating the importance of climate change to the average American”. 

A slowdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) could “exert a systemic impact on the Amazon” by causing northern forests to dry, new research suggests. The AMOC is a system of ocean currents that moves water, heat and nutrients around the Atlantic Ocean and the globe. There are concerns that climate change could cause the AMOC to weaken this century. The new research uses pollen and micro-charcoal data from 25,000 to 12,500 years ago and finds that a past AMOC slowdown caused northern Amazon forests to dry out. It concludes: “Combined with current disturbances such as deforestation and wildfires elsewhere in the basin, an AMOC slowdown may exert a systemic impact on the Amazon forest.”