According to a new study – also covered in a new in-depth piece by Carbon Brief – the “heavy rains that resulted in landslides killing hundreds in southern India last month” between 29-30 July last month were 10% more intense because of global warming, the Associated Press reports. Rain that caused the landslides “was the third-heaviest in Kerala state since India’s weather agency began record-keeping in 1901”, it adds, and rescuers are still searching for more than 130 missing people in Kerala. According to the study led by an international team of 24 researchers at World Weather Attribution, the Wayanad region had “seen a 62% decrease in forest cover and that that may have contributed to increased risks of landslides during heavy rains”, the newswire continues, adding that the authors recommended “minimising deforestation and quarrying, while improving early warning and evacuation systems”. Other outlets that cover the attribution study include the New York Times, ABC News, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Mint, Indian Express and the Print. The Congress-led opposition in Kerala said that “the recent landslides…indicate that climate change can no longer be ignored”, Press Trust of India reports. It says the opposition also suggested the state implements an early warning system to protect against future disasters and “going forward, any developmental work should take climate change also into account”. 

In energy news, Reuters reports that an Adani coal-fired power plant in India that is “under contract to sell all its output to Bangladesh can now supply the domestic market after an amendment to India’s power export rules, helping the company hedge against political risks in Bangladesh”. Meanwhile, the Economic Times cites government figures showing that India added 1.73 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in July, “taking the [country’s] cumulative installed [solar] capacity to 87.2 GW at the end of the month”. Elsewhere, Mint reports that a “high-stakes sale is underway in India’s burgeoning renewable energy sector as Shell Plc explores the sale of 1GW of operational assets from its Sprng Energy unit”. It adds that Shell is fielding interest from “global and domestic entities”, including ArcelorMittal that is looking “reduce its carbon footprint in response to the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM)”. 

Nearly half a billion children live in areas where there are at least twice the number of extremely hot days every year as in the 1960s, according to analysis by Unicef reported on by the Guardian. Some 466 million children – about one in five children globally – live in regions where days are now more than twice as likely to be above 35C, the Guardian says. Children in west and central Africa are the most exposed to extremely hot days and this area has also had the most significant increases over time, the Guardian says, adding: “A total of 123 million children, or 39% of children in the region, experience temperatures above 35C over an average of four months every year, the analysis says. The figures include 212 days in Mali, 202 days in Niger, 198 days in Senegal, and 195 days in Sudan.” Bloomberg reports that, in the US, 36 million children are exposed to double the number of hot days compared with 60 years ago, according to the analysis. It continues: “The number of days with extreme temperatures adds to the impact of climate-related hazards on children’s health, including food and water security, disrupting access to education and pushing people to move. Hotter temperatures have also been linked to threats to children’s health such as child malnutrition and leaving them more vulnerable to diseases that spread in higher temperatures such as malaria and dengue.”

Elsewhere, BBC News reports that a man has died of heat exposure in Death Valley National Park, the second this summer in an area known for its extreme temperatures.

Unprecedented fires raging from Canada to the Amazon from 2023 to 2024 were at least three times more likely because of climate change, according to a first annual assessment of wildfires covered by the Press Association. The first “state of wildfires” report also finds that carbon emissions from wildfires in 2023-2024 were 16% above average, emitting 8.2bn tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, PA says. The Guardian says that, according to the report, Canada’s “record-shattering” wildfires produced “nearly as much greenhouse gas emissions in one season as would be expected over a decade of fires in normal circumstances”. As well as fires in Canada and the Amazon, last year also saw deadly fires in Hawaii and Texas that killed more than 100 people, as well as the biggest single fire ever recorded in the EU, which burned 900 square kilometres of Greece, the Guardian says.

Elsewhere, BBC News reports that firefighters have extinguished extreme blazes near Athens in Greece.

Following recent extreme weather events, China’s central bank will “provide an additional 100bn yuan ($14bn) to banks to support rebuilding” in agriculturally-important regions and “to farmers, small and micro-sized firms and households” to support food security, Reuters reports. The newswire adds that “recent extreme weather damaged around 6m acres of crops”. Bloomberg reports that “torrential rains” have flooded farmland and mines, and hampered the production of oil in China. A group of Chinese scientists have found that “for every 1C increase in temperature, the environmental adaptability of selected wheat varieties decreases by 8.7%”, China Science Daily reports. The state-run newspaper China Daily reports that, according to Chinese scientists, “the headwaters of the Yangtze, China’s longest river, are expected to experience a warming and humidification trend”, adding that, under moderate emission scenarios, average temperatures could rise 2-4C and precipitation by 10-30%. 

Meanwhile, Reuters covers an announcement by market research firm Rho Motion that “thanks to China’s strongest growth this year and despite dropping demand in Europe”, the global electric vehicle (EV) market saw a 21% year-on-year increase in sales in July. Science and Technology Daily reports that China’s “high-tech industry” is leading in the country’s electricity consumption growth, and that, as of the end of June, there were 24.7m EVs in China, accounting for 7.18% of all vehicles. The Financial Times reports that, quarter-to-quarter, “German direct investment into China has risen sharply” in the second quarter this year, pushed by German car manufacturers. American automaker General Motors, by contrast, is “cutting staff” in China and will discuss “possible capacity cuts”, Bloomberg reports. Elsewhere, Reuters reports that China Energy Engineering has signed a $972m contract to build a solar power plant in Saudi Arabia.

Industry news outlet BJX News reports that China issued an action plan for the “high-quality development of distribution networks”, focused on “enhancing power supply capacity, disaster resistance and load-bearing capacity”. Energy news outlet International Energy Net also covers the story, adding that one key task in the plan is to “explore a batch of distributed smart grid projects”. Another BJX News report says that several regions in China have “publicly issued notices to temporarily halt the filing of distributed solar projects” due to “urgent” concerns around consumption, following a two-year surge in installations.

Elsewhere, China’s state news agency Xinhua states that, driven by Chinese president Xi Jinping’s vision of “ecological civilisation”, China’s northeastern “rust-belt” region has “embraced a green transition”. An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times argues that the world will realise that “hindering China’s green transformation will ultimately hinder their own…green transition”.

In the UK, there is continued coverage of the news that an electricity “superhighway” for transferring renewable energy between Scotland and England has been approved. The Times says: “Most of the 310 miles of cabling will be laid under the North Sea and will run from Peterhead in Aberdeenshire to Bridlington on the East Yorkshire coast. A further underground section will connect inland to Drax, the vast power generator near Selby in North Yorkshire. Once operational, the link will have a capacity of two gigawatts, meaning that it will be capable of providing power for up to 2m homes.” There is further coverage in BBC News and the Daily Telegraph.

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reports on comments from the head of Dowlais, a metals part supplying company, who says that the switch to electric cars is “taking longer than anyone expected”. [In the UK, battery EV sales grew 19% year-on-year in June; it was 30% in EU/EFTA/UK combined.]

Ukraine needs $20bn in investments to develop its renewable power sector under a plan which seeks to boost its share in the country’s energy mix to 27% by 2030, according to a government announcement on Tuesday covered by Reuters. The newswire continues: “The country’s energy sector has lost half of its generating capacity as a result of Russian missile and drone attacks, which intensified in spring 2024, forcing it to rely on its nuclear plants as well as solar and wind generation. The plan approved by the government aims to add around 10,000 megawatts of new generation facilities. The share of renewable energy in heat and cold supply systems should reach 33%, in electricity generation 29% and in the transport sector 17% in 2030, the government said.” Elsewhere, Reuters also reports that Poland is launching a $5bn programme financed from the European Union’s recovery funds to provide loans to builders of offshore wind farms on the Baltic Sea.

Several publications factcheck claims Donald Trump made about climate change in a conversation with Elon Musk hosted on Twitter (now known as “X”). BBC News says that “in a two-hour discussion…Trump made a number of questionable and false claims, which went largely unchallenged”. According to BBC News, Trump “vastly underestimated” the pace of sea level rise in the discussion. The New York Times covers nine things Trump and Musk said about climate change, including Musk saying that high concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause “headaches and nausea” and Trump saying the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has “more oil than Saudi Arabia”. Emily Atkin at Heated has produced a “line-by-line” factcheck of the conversation. On his Substack, US environmentalist Bill McKibben describes it as “the dumbest climate conversation of all time”. The Guardian covers what McKibben and other climate experts made of the conversation. Meanwhile, publications including E&E News and the India Times report that Trump said climate change means “more oceanfront property”.

An editorial in Nature says that, in the next few months, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s principal legal body in The Hague, the Netherlands, will begin hearing evidence on two questions: “First, what are countries’ obligations in international law to protect the climate system from anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, and second, what should the legal consequences be for states when their actions – or failure to act – cause harm?” Nature continues: “This could be one of the most consequential developments in climate policy since the Paris Agreement itself. Adil Najam, president of the global conservation NGO WWF, writes in a world view [published on 8 August] that the ICJ’s opinion ‘will amplify the voices of millions of scientists and citizens who are demanding strong ambition and action on climate and nature protection’.”

In a “viewpoint” paper, researchers say that the rate of global warming – the speed at which warming increases – “shows a declining trend in the coming decades” under the climate policies now in place. Using projections of human-caused emissions and global average temperature responses under current policies, the authors show that the rate of warming is expected to be 0.21C per decade around 2025 and 0.15C per decade around 2050. This downward trend “could be greater if both nationally determined contributions and long-term net-zero climate targets are achieved”, the authors say. Nonetheless, the authors say, the rate will “remain greater than zero” and, thus, “the Earth is expected to continue getting warmer”.