Donald Trump and Kamala Harris faced off in the first televised presidential debate ahead of the US election on Tuesday night, with the last question dedicated to climate change – a topic that Trump “completely ignored”, the Rolling Stone reports. In response to the question “what would you do to fight climate change?”, Trump “spoke of auto manufacturing plants being built in China, and said he would put tariffs on some imported cars”, the Rolling Stone says. He then claimed that “Biden doesn’t go after people because supposedly, China paid him millions of dollars.” The publication adds that Harris “slammed Trump for having called climate change a ‘hoax’, noting it’s ‘very real’, posing physical dangers to Americans, and costing them financially”. It adds: “She touted the Biden administration’s investments in renewable energy, as well as, on the other hand, record domestic gas production.” Grist reports further on Harris’s response, saying: “While Harris pointed out the existence of these worsening problems, she did not say what she plans to do about them, choosing instead to cite investments in climate change made by the current president.” Grist adds that Harris chose not to tout environmental wins in her political record, including when she investigated oil companies as California attorney general, and instead “doubled down on her recent efforts to make swing state voters in gas-rich states like Pennsylvania forget about the anti-fracking position she took during her 2019 presidential campaign”. During the debate, she reaffirmed that she would not ban fracking, Grist says. The publication quotes a representative from the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate group, saying: “Harris spent more time promoting fracking than laying out a bold vision for a clean energy future. We want to see a real plan that meets the scale and urgency of this crisis.” The Atlantic says that, overall during the debate, “climate discussion did not go far” – despite it being held while “while wildfires rage in Nevada, southern California, Oregon and Idaho” and “Louisiana is bracing for a possible hurricane landfall”. It says: “The next president will be a climate-disaster president, and will likely be forced by circumstance to answer at least one climate-change question. And at this point, it’s not just ‘What would you do to fight climate change’. It’s ‘How will you help Americans handle its effects?’” Elsewhere, a column in the Los Angeles Times says young climate campaigners have “mostly” embraced Harris. [Carbon Brief has an interactive grid explaining where Harris and Trump stand on climate and energy issues.]

Floods in northern Nigeria have affected thousands of people and killed “more than 80%” of animals in a large zoo, also washing “crocodiles and snakes” into community areas, Reuters says. Floods in the northern Borno state began when a dam overflowed following heavy rains, reports Nigeria’s Foundation for Investigative Journalism. “The flooding began a few days ago but it reached its peak on Tuesday, displacing residents of Bulabulin, Galtimari, Fori, Gwange and other parts of Maiduguri,” it says. Le Monde reports that at least 18 people have been killed in Morocco in “extraordinarily violent floods” affecting multiple parts of the country. The Conversation has a piece examining whether a large population affected by recent flooding in South Sudan is “the first example of a mass population permanently displaced by climate change”, saying: “Enormous floods have once again engulfed much of South Sudan, as record water-levels in Lake Victoria flow downstream through the Nile. More than 700,000 people have been affected. Hundreds of thousands of people there were already forced from their homes by huge floods a few years ago and were yet to return before this new threat emerged. Now, there are concerns that these displaced communities may never be able to return to their lands. While weather extremes regularly displace whole communities in other parts of the world, this could be the first permanent mass displacement due to climate change.”

In Brazil, the Guardian reports that the president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has flown into the Amazon amid growing alarm over the droughts and wildfires sweeping the rainforest region. According to the newspaper, visiting drought-stricken communities in Amazonas state, Lula said: “It seems to me that things are getting worse, year after year after year…his is a problem that we have to fix because otherwise humanity is going to destroy our planet.” The Associated Press reports that Sao Paulo’s river has turned emerald green because of drought.

In the US, the Guardian reports that thousands of people east of Los Angeles have been “ordered to flee their homes from an out-of-control wildfire that has burned through a large area of forest”, amid “a ferocious heatwave”. The Independent reports that a TikToker has died while attempting to complete a half-marathon at Disneyland in the scorching heat. The New York Times reports that Louisiana is preparing for Hurricane Francine to make landfall.

Finally, in Vietnam, the death toll from Typhoon Yagi has risen to 127, BBC News reports.

A frontpage story in the FT reports that India’s Tata Group said it is “very close” to a deal that will “release £500m of UK taxpayers’ money to support greener steelmaking at its main British plant, in the first test of Labour’s industrial policy”. Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chair of the holding company for the Indian conglomerate, told the newspaper that talks with the UK government on a state grant for the facility were “going well” and that a deal was “very close”. It adds: “Under the agreement, the government will provide £500m towards a £1.25bn investment in a new electric arc furnace at Port Talbot which will melt down scrap steel. Tata Steel, the Tata Group subsidiary that runs the Welsh plant, will complete the wind down of its blast furnace operations at the end of September. The closure will cut the number of jobs at the facility by up to 2,500.” The Guardian, which also has the story on its frontpage, says business secretary Jonathan Reynolds is expected to outline the plan today. It adds: “It is understood the government, which previously promised to ‘push for job guarantees’, has been unable to protect these jobs, with 2,500 still expected to go in the coming months.” The Daily Telegraph says that “Welsh-made steel from Port Talbot could be used to build giant floating offshore wind turbines” as part of the deal. Quoting its own sources, it says: “The government will provide £500m towards the furnace, as previously announced under the Conservatives, but Whitehall and union sources said the new funding deal would build on the earlier agreement. They said this would include stronger support for laid-off workers and commitments from Tata to examine expanding Port Talbot’s operations in future. This could include building facilities such as a mill to produce steel plates for wind turbines, at a time when massive floating offshore wind farms are being planned in the Celtic Sea.” 

Elsewhere, the Guardian also reports on its frontpage that MPs have voted to remove the winter fuel allowance from all but the poorest pensioners in England and Wales, with a significant number of Labour MPs abstaining. The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, i newspaper and Financial Times all put the story on their frontpage. David Smith, economics editor of the Sunday Times, says in a column that petrol and diesel duty [which has been frozen for more than a decade at a cost to efforts to cut emissions] could be the next tax to be overhauled. BBC News reports that the National Farmers’ Union has warned that the plan to reach net-zero for farming by 2040 may not be achieved. The Guardian reports that a largest-of-its-kind survey has found that only 65% of UK businesses have a plan to reduce their emissions to net-zero by 2050. The Times reports that another oil and gas producer, Serica, has warned that a hike of the windfall tax will “hamper its plans to invest further” in the UK. It comes as Politico reports on how the UK government is “turning its back on oil”. And BBC News reports on a “low carbon” scheme to heat Welsh homes with water from abandoned mines.

Sea ice surrounding Antarctica is close to reaching a record winter low for a second year in a row, the Guardian reports. It explains: “The Antarctic region underwent an abrupt transformation in 2023 as the sea ice cover surrounding the continent crashed for six months straight. In winter, it covered about 1.6m square kilometres less than the long-term average – an area roughly the size of Britain, France, Germany and Spain combined. Scientists at the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership said the latest data showed this had been repeated in 2024. On 7 September the amount of frozen ocean was less than on the same date last year.” It quotes Dr Will Hobbs, a sea ice researcher at the University of Tasmania, saying: “What we’re really talking about are two incredible extreme events. Last year was outrageous and it’s happened again.”

Campaigners have accused G20 leaders of turning their back on the pledge to transition away from fossil fuels first made at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last year, the Guardian says. Ministers from the G20 group, including the US, UK, China and India, will meet in Rio de Janeiro today to discuss options for tackling climate change, the Guardian says, with a draft version of the communique from this meeting failing to mention the fossil fuel pledge. The Guardian says: “The omission could result in a serious backsliding, campaigners fear, and they have called for the commitment to be reinstated.”

The EU is looking to “make small downward adjustments to the additional tariff rates” for Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), Bloomberg reports. The outlet says that the new rate for Tesla will be revised to 7.8% from 9%, and the “new highest rate” dropped from 36.3% to 35.3%. Reuters also covers the story, saying that there is “no change” to BYD’s 17% tariff. Before the EU’s announcement, China’s vice commerce minister Li Fei has said that “China was willing to engage in dialogue and consultations” with the EU to address trade frictions over EVs, a separate Reuters article says.

Meanwhile, China Daily, a state-run newspaper, reports that Chinese president Xi Jinping and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez have discussed issues, including the “market opening up” and “new energy cooperation”, in Beijing on Monday. (The story was on the frontpage of the printed version of China Daily.) Another China Daily report says China and the US will “make joint efforts to ensure a successful UN climate change conference in November”. The Guardian publishes an analysis under the title: “How China and a tariffs row cast a shadow over booming US solar power.”

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that China’s “long-awaited enlargement” of its emissions trading scheme (ETS) set a “relatively low bar” for companies in the steel, cement and aluminium sectors, which could “blunt its impact in the first phase”. Another Reuters article cites a report by thinktank Global Energy Monitor (GEM), saying that China “accounts for more than half of the world’s pipeline of new coal mines, risking a significant increase in methane emissions”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that a group of Chinese scientists are “warning of climate change risks after Tibet’s biggest inland lake spilled over into another one”. Industry news outlet International Energy Net reports that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, announces plans to continue to “develop non-fossil energy sources” and “accelerate the construction of a new power system”. Dialogue Earth publishes a long feature about China’s carbon market under the title: “China’s carbon market is moving from burden to boon.”

Finally, Bloomberg and Financial Times cover deflation in China. Reuters says that China’s campaign to “support equipment upgrades and trade-in of consumer goods has proven lukewarm in spurring consumer confidence, with domestic car sales extending declines for a fourth month in July”. The Financial Times has a column saying “foreign carmakers also have a China overcapacity problem”. State news agency Xinhua reports that in the first eight months of 2024, China produced more than 7m NEVs (including electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles), and the sales of NEVs grew by 30.9% from a year earlier.

At the third meeting of the ad-hoc work programme on the new climate finance goal, India “assert[ed]” there should be “no digressions” from developed countries providing finance to developing countries and that the goal “is neither an investment goal nor a domestic mobilisation goal”, the Hindustan Times reports. It adds that India has asked for a paragraph in the draft that “talks of economic capacities, emission profiles and on how parties can contribute to the goal” to be removed, and “strongly object[ed]” to language by the EU, which suggests that the “collective [finance] goal can only be reached if parties with high [greenhouse gas]-emissions and economic capabilities join the effort”. The story adds that the “Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group, which includes India, expects at least $1tn mobilised by developed countries yearly from 2025 to 2030, with updates until 2035 based on evolving needs”. Harjeet Singh of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty told the Hindustan Times that “India is standing firm in reminding wealthy nations that climate finance is not a business venture – it is a moral and legal obligation”. 

Meanwhile, according to a new study covered by the Press Trust of India, renewable energy “deployment beyond 1,500GW” towards meeting India’s net-zero by 2070 goals “could face critical challenges, including climate risks, high land prices, land conflicts and population density”. The study by thinktank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) finds that “only 18% of onshore wind potential and 22% of solar potential are located in areas with low climate risks and low land prices”, while only about 35% and 41% respectively are “located in areas free from historical land conflicts”. Economic Times, meanwhile, reports that India’s new and renewable energy minister is “actively considering” adding solar cell imports to a list of “approved” manufacturers that currently restricts solar module imports, to “reduce reliance on Chinese supplies and strengthen domestic manufacturing”. 

In related news, India’s road and transport minister Nitin Gadkari is quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying Indian “[c]onsumers are now choosing electric and compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles on their own” and that “manufacturing of electric vehicles no longer needs to be subsidised by the government”. Livemint reports that his ministry has mandated “the use of high-tensile stainless steel in bridge construction contracts for national highways and central projects near coastal regions prone to severe marine exposure” to “better reflect the evolving climate patterns affecting infrastructure”, after “escalating incidents of bridge collapses linked to extreme weather conditions”.

Finally, the Financial Express carries a column by the country’s former Earth sciences secretary Madhavan Rajeevan looking at long-term changes in the south-west monsoon, warning that monsoon “hiatus days”, extreme rainfall events and “the frequency of El Nino and La Nina events” are increasing. And the Hindustan Times covers threats to coral reefs on the island archipelago of Lakshadweep “imperilled by heating seas and a string of tourism projects”.

Karabo Mokgonyana, a renewable energy campaigner at the Kenyan thinktank Power Shift Africa, writes in South Africa’s Mail and Guardian that Africa is well placed to become a “global green superpower”, but must first overcome several obstacles. Mokgonyana says: “Access to financing and capital is a significant barrier. Renewable energy projects require substantial upfront investment and, bearing in mind the debt crisis, many African countries struggle to attract the necessary funding. Innovative and reformative financing mechanisms such as green bonds and blended finance can help bridge this gap. International partnerships and development finance institutions also play a crucial role in mobilising resources…[Also], the reliance on fossil fuels and extractive industries remains a problem. Transitioning to renewable energy requires a strategic shift away from these industries, which can be politically and economically difficult. Diversifying economies and providing alternative livelihoods for communities dependent on fossil fuels are critical steps in this process.”

There has been no overall decline in fossil fuel lending by banks since the Paris Agreement, a new study says, but “regional differences are apparent”. The researchers explore the network of bank lending relationships that underlie more than $7tn of “syndicated” fossil-fuel debt – where a group of partner banks share risks. A “select cohort” of European banks – including UBS, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank – have led the fossil finance phase-out by decreasing “both their individual lending and their influence within the deal syndication network”, the researchers find. However, “several large Japanese and Canadian banks have increased their individual lending and syndication activity”, the study says, “indicating a trend of finance substitution”. The study shows that syndicated debt markets “are resilient to uncoordinated phase-out scenarios without regulatory limits on banks’ fossil fuel lending”, the authors say.

New research identifies a “urban wet island” effect where urbanisation can result in increased rainfall over cities. Using high-resolution satellite data, the researchers examine daily rainfall anomalies for more than 1,000 cities around the world from 2001 to 2020. The findings show that more than 60% of the cities and their downwind regions “are receiving more precipitation than the surrounding rural areas”. In addition, the magnitude of these urban wet islands “has nearly doubled” over the 20-year period. The researchers find that the cities most affected are those in warm and humid climates, as well as those with higher levels of air pollution.