The average global temperature reached 17.01C (62.62F) on Monday, 3 July, surpassing the previous record of 16.92C (62.46F) set in August 2016, according to Reuters. North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C (122F), a station in Antarctica broke the region’s July record with a temperature of 8.7C (47.6F) and heatwaves continue from the US to China, the article notes. The article quotes Carbon Brief contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather, who says: “Unfortunately, it promises to only be the first in a series of new records set this year as increasing emissions of [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gases coupled with a growing El Niño event push temperatures to new highs.” New Scientist also reports that the spike in temperatures is likely to have been driven in part by accelerating El Niño conditions, which lead to sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean rising above average. The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has officially announced that El Niño has arrived, creating a “double whammy” of extreme heat on top of the effects of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Guardian. Another Guardian piece reports that, with El Niño leading to higher-than-average sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, ocean temperatures around Australia last month “were the hottest for any June on record”. The Daily Mail notes that “Despite the cooling effects of El Niño’s long-lasting opposite – ‘La Niña’ – over the last few years, global temperatures have tended to rise regardless”.

In its piece on the new daily temperature record, Sky News quotes Carbon Brief contributing editor Dr Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, who describes the milestone as “a death sentence for people and ecosystems”. Indeed, as Bloomberg points out, the heat this summer “has already put millions of people around the world at risk”, with deaths recorded in some of India’s poorest regions, for example. The new record is based on analysis by scientists at the University of Maine, the Hill reports. It also quotes Dr Robert Rohde, of the University of California, Berkeley, who says “we may well see a few even warmer days over the next six weeks”. BBC News adds to this that, according to scientists, this month is likely to be the hottest July on record and therefore the hottest month ever. The Associated Press notes that the “record” is “unofficial”, as it is based on the Climate Reanalyzer, which uses a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) computer simulation intended for forecasts that uses satellite data and “is not based on reported observations from the ground”. It is therefore “preliminary, pending approval from gold-standard climate measurement entities” such as the NOAA itself, the newswire adds.

In the UK, the Daily Mail reports that as 72 counties reported that last month was their hottest June since records began in 1884, in the UK there were reports of thousands of fish being killed by the heat. Scotland’s Daily Record says conservationists have warned that the UK Government must take “urgent action” to save seabirds after an unprecedented “severe” marine heatwave has made it harder for them to find fish to eat.

The UK government is “drawing up plans” to drop the nation’s flagship £11.6bn climate and nature finance pledge, the Guardian reports. This refers to the UK’s contribution to meeting the global $100bn (£78.6bn) annual commitment to developing countries, a target that developed countries failed to meet in 2020 and have still not hit three years later. The new revelation is based on a “leaked briefing note to ministers, given to the Foreign Office and seen by the Guardian”. It appears on the front page of the newspaper. The article notes that the target is facing significant pressures, particularly the government cutting international aid spending to 0.5% of gross national income, from the previous 0.7%. Civil servants said in the leaked document that focusing on climate would therefore “squeeze out room for other commitments such as humanitarian and women and girls”, the paper says, with factors such as Ukraine and debt relief potentially making it even more difficult to meet the target. BBC News, which has also seen the document in question, reports that, since former prime minister Boris Johnson pledged in 2019 to double the amount spent on the UK’s international climate finance (ICF) to at least £11.6bn between 2021/22 and 2025/26, the government has “consistently underspent and would now struggle to meet its 2026 target”. The Daily Telegraph picks up the story from the Guardian, noting that in order to meet the £11.6bn target spending by 2026, some 83% of the Foreign Office’s official development assistance budget would need to be spent.

In response to the story, Reuters reports that the UK government has said that the claims reported in the Guardian that it was dropping its ICF pledge were false. The article notes that prime minister Rishi Sunak’s climate policies have “come under critique after British international environment minister Zac Goldsmith resigned last week, saying that Sunak was ‘uninterested’ in environmental issues”. 

Meanwhile, the Independent reports that net-zero and energy secretary Grant Shapps “has insisted the government is doing a ‘pretty good job’ on decarbonisation after a week in which an independent group of climate advisers expressed doubts on progress”.

Governments are set to agree on “boost[ing] the global shipping sector’s emissions reduction targets”, after a week of closed door negotiations, Climate Home News reports. The chair of the talks published a draft strategy on Monday which “includes improved emissions cut targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050” and aims for the sector to reach net-zero either “by” or “around” 2050, the story says. The yet-to-be-approved strategy is subject to change and is “less ambitious than some governments and environmental groups are calling for” but still a “step up” from current goals, the outlet adds. According to the story, the UK’s negotiator argued for a shipping net-zero target by 2050 – at “the absolute latest” – while China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia called for the weaker “around 2050” target. Larger developing countries are “pushing back out of concern for their export markets”, the Energy Mix reports. Marshall Islands’ special envoy for shipping decarbonization Albon Ishoda is quoted by the outlet saying “[t]he draft doesn’t go far enough. Net-zero isn’t enough – it needs to be zero emissions. We need this sector to align with a 1.5C trajectory.” Other experts point out in the piece that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) “doesn’t even have the political instruments needed to achieve its former objective”.

China is “reeling from an onslaught of extreme weather”, including heatwaves and floods, that have caused “significant damage to infrastructure and crops”, writes Asia Financial. Citing a report by the state broadcaster CGTN, it says that “torrential rain” in northern China resulted in flash floods that caused the death of one individual and the disappearance of two others. China Daily reports that eastern China’s Shandong province “issued a notice on Monday listing emergency measures involving job suspensions, schools and transportation” for the “main flood season”. The Chongqing municipality issued three “yellow flood warnings” (second lowest level of warning), reports the state-run newspaper Global Times. The Guardian reports under the headline: “Xi Jinping urges action as rains destroy buildings and displace thousands.” It adds: “China regularly faces severe flooding, and as global warming fuels more frequent extreme weather, problems are likely to intensify. Chinese meteorological authorities warned the country can expect ‘multiple natural disasters in July, including floods, severe convection weather, typhoons and high temperatures’, AFP reported.” In China, Bloomberg reports that soaring temperatures are putting pressure on the country’s grid and Reuters has an article about how “dramatic swings between extreme heat and intense rainfall are testing China’s ability to cope with increasingly wild weather”.

Meanwhile, Beijing News covers European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans’ climate speech in Beijing, but does not mention his concerns about China’s climate journey (see Daily Briefing 4 July). The outlet says Timmerman calls for stronger Sino-European “green cooperation” and a global “green transition”. Xinhua reports that Chinese representatives at the UN Human Rights Council have “called on all parties to strengthen cooperation on climate change and food security”. Bloomberg reports that the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell is scheduled to meet with Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang and other senior officials next Monday.

In other China news, state planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has issued a document on “the industrial key areas’ energy efficiency benchmark level and reference level” for 2023, reports China Energy News. It requires industries to update and advance their technology for “green development”, the state-run industry newspaper adds. Meanwhile, the Financial Times says that the competition between European and Chinese energy companies to secure shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US is “driving investment in a range of export projects that will boost a market facing a potential supply shortage”. Caixin reports that the Chinese government is “weighing whether to abandon the strict controls that keep household gas rates low, allowing them to float within a controlled range”, citing “a source close to regulators”.

Separately, Al Jazeera publishes a comment on climate misinformation in China, by Purple Romera of Hong Kong University’s Annie Lab. She says “these narratives are deeply connected to China’s assertion of its identity and pursuit of its aspirations. China has bounced back after years of poverty… It takes pride in this shift and development, so any challenge to this progress – and to the image of China – is perceived as hostile.” Although misinformation on books and TV shows has disappeared in recent years, “online, climate denial lives on and remains strong”, Romera adds.

In other news, CGTN says its own international online survey shows over 70% of the participants “believe that climate change is an urgent issue and that sustainable development is the fundamental way to solve the problem of climate change”. A comment for Reuters Breakingviews by columnist Hugo Dixon says “China remains a threat” to the west, “but the new situation [of a weakened Russia] may open up chances to work with China on peace and climate change”. Finally People’s Daily, a newspaper of the Chinese communist party, reports that the China Meteorological Administration has released the “2022 national ecological and meteorological bulletin”, which says that the “overall quality of vegetation ecology in China is showing an improving trend”.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) aims to triple the contribution of renewables to the country’s energy mix over the next seven years with 200bn dirhams ($54.4bn) worth of investment, according to the Saudi Arabia-based website Arab News. It says the country’s cabinet approved both the updated UAE National Energy Strategy 2050 and the National Hydrogen Strategy, “which aims to position the UAE as a leading producer and exporter of low-emission hydrogen over the next eight years”. The website notes that the same meeting saw the approval of multiple other policies, including the National Electric Vehicles policy which aims to build a network of electric vehicle chargers around the nation. UAE-based the National quotes Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, prime minister and ruler of Dubai, who said the expansion of renewables would “meet the increasing demand for energy in the country due to the accelerated economic growth”. Recharge News says the move, which would see the nation’s renewable capacity reach 14.2 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, comes “amid controversy over the involvement of the oil-rich state” as head of the upcoming UN climate talks at COP28. Bloomberg notes that “like many oil-producing nations, the push toward a cleaner energy system is currently outweighed by the importance of fossil fuels” in the UAE economy, but notes it was the first Middle Eastern state to announce a mid-century net-zero goal.

India is looking to sign bilateral agreements with countries such as Japan “to allow them to use carbon credits linked to green hydrogen production in India in exchange for investment and purchase deals”, Reuters reports, citing government and industry sources. India is already in talks with Japan and signed an early “agreement to establish a joint crediting system (JCM) for decarbonisation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement” in March this year, the story adds. Energy companies such as Reliance Industries and Adani “have big plans for green hydrogen”, it says. Last week, the Indian government published a list of activities to be considered for carbon trading under bilateral and cooperative approaches, which include green hydrogen, “solar thermal power” and sustainable aviation fuel. The World Bank board approved $1.5bn in funding to support green hydrogen development and policies that launch a national carbon market in India, the Indian Express reports. (The loan is “facilitated by a UK $1bn backstop aimed at boosting the World Bank’s climate change financing to India”, says a statement from the World Bank.) New Delhi is set to play host to the International Conference on Green Hydrogen (ICGH 2023) over the next three days, Mint reports. The country is considering participating in the G7 “climate club” that Chile is set to co-chair, writes Down To Earth. Separately, Scroll.in carried a piece titled “How India made it harder to declare a drought”, while Columbia’s Prof Adam Sobel spoke to Question of Cities about how Mumbai’s infrastructure projects ignore “extreme climate risks”.

The EU needs to invest an additional €700bn ($763bn) a year if it is to “green” the economy and cut out “cheap” Russian fossil fuels, according to a draft report from the bloc’s executive arm, Bloomberg reports. The news website says the European Commission thinks “most of that figure will have to be privately sourced”, but it adds that the sum, which is “significantly higher than that proposed by commission president Ursula von der Leyen less than two years ago – underlines the escalating costs of reaching net-zero goals”. Meanwhile, another Bloomberg article says some European power prices have fallen below zero again as “production from solar farms overwhelms the grid early in the afternoon” on Tuesday. “It’s an increasingly common phenomenon as Europe races to build more cheap solar farms to cut demand for fossil fuels,” it says.

As the Daily Mail enters the third day of its “rethink the 2030 petrol car ban” campaign, it features yet more stories questioning the target, which is a key component in the UK’s net-zero strategy. The paper cites recommendations from a group of MPs on the transport committee, which, it says, found that “synthetic fuels and biofuels – which can be used in traditional combustion engines to reduce emissions – are being ‘demonised’ by ministers despite the fact that ‘addressing the existing fleet will be decisive in achieving our climate goals’”. The committee cited concerns about the lack of electric-vehicle charging points in rural areas, the paper adds. Another article in the same newspaper has the headline: “Electric car drivers are forced to clog their phones with more than 30 payment apps to navigate the charging network.” Meanwhile, major Conservative donor and JCB boss Lord Bamford has penned an article for the Daily Mail singing the praises of hydrogen-powered vehicles. [As Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans pointed out in a recent Guardian factcheck, there are still only 72,000 hydrogen-fuelled fuel-cell vehicles on the planet, compared to about 14m electric vehicles due to be sold this year alone.]

Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph picks up the story in yesterday’s Financial Times and reports that Toyota has “hailed a ‘technological breakthrough’ in electric car batteries that it claims will halve their cost, size and weight”. (Toyota is the car company that has pushed for hydrogen vehicles more than any other in the past.)

In his column for the i newspaper, chief political commentator Paul Waugh says the only moment when UK prime minister Rishi Sunak showed “discomfort” during questions from “his own side” (the Conservative Party) was when he was quizzed about the environment. Waugh notes that this follows criticism from government advisers the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the resignation of international climate minister Zac Goldsmith, who accused Sunak of being “simply uninterested” in climate change. Waugh writes: “Yet Goldsmith’s criticism stings precisely because it tallies with other Tories who are dismayed that Boris Johnson’s leadership (on this issue at least) has been replaced by inertia under Sunak.”. He notes that instead of engaging with the substance of these critiques, ministers have instead chosen to take aim at the disruptive tactics of Just Stop Oil. Waugh continues: “At the 10th anniversary of the Conservative Environment Network recently, I’m told the prime minister ‘lost the room’ when he devoted a big chunk of his speech to his Just Stop Oil schtick.” He says that Sunak appears to be “just too scared of a handful of backbenchers who are sceptical about net-zero”, when he should be taking the economic opportunities that come with the net-zero transition. Waugh concludes: “Instead of waging another lame culture war, Sunak could boost his credentials as a pragmatist and a moderniser if he finally seized the urgency of this crisis.”

This point is repeated in a piece for Politics Home by former “net-zero tsar” Chris Skidmore, titled “how we can seize the opportunities from the UK’s transition to net-zero”. He concludes: “The choice before us is the net-zero path – which will lead to £1tn by 2030 of inward investment, or the not zero path, which would see that investment go elsewhere.” Alex Dawson, UK director at Global Counsel, a strategic advisory firm focused on public policy, writes in the Times that as politicians waver on net-zero measures such as the 2030 ban on new petrol-and-diesel cars, UK businesses need certainty about the future. Writing in the Scotsman, meanwhile, Dr Richard Dixon, an environmental campaigner and consultant, says that Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf “needs to do more to make sure his government actually delivers on its environmental promises if he is not to face the same kind of accusations as Rishi Sunak”. Finally, BusinessGreen has an interview with outgoing CCC chair Lord Deben, who says he will continue to make the case for a faster net-zero transition.

A new study reviews the evidence for security risks arising from climate change and environmental degradation in the Global South and proposes ways that affected communities can address the security risks. The authors identify diverse land use strategies as key to driving a transformation. Specifically, they propose that rural land use should be geared towards promoting resource and biodiversity conservation, agroforestry and tree-based farming. Diversifying crops and using climate-resilient cultivars as well as neglected and underused plants could also help to increase resilience, the paper notes. The study is part of a special issue on Resilience and Peace, which explores multiple perspectives from a range of disciplines and sectors.