Climate, in brief

The Office for National Statistics published England and Wales's climate-related mortality data on Wednesday: over 40,000 more people died on the hottest days between 1988 and 2025 than expected. [1]

Cold still kills far more in England, with 139,000 deaths linked to the coldest days over the same 38 years, but the ONS says the gap is narrowing. [1]

Those figures stop before this summer. Britain's health agency already estimates 2,877 heat deaths in the May and June heatwaves alone, nearly double the whole of summer 2025. [1]

Across the continent at least 35,000 more people than usual died in Europe's four back-to-back heatwaves, on incomplete returns from barely half the countries. [3]

Germany reported about 14,000 heat-related deaths between 6 April and 9 August, with 9,600 in the single week of 22 to 28 June. Its previous worst year was 8,900. [3]

Heat is almost never written on a death certificate. It aggravates an existing illness, so people die of a heart attack, a stroke or kidney failure and the heat leaves no trace in the record. [3]

A Northwestern University study published Wednesday took the opposite approach: it tested all 1,800 diagnosis codes used in Chicago emergency rooms against the city's hottest days. [2]

Across roughly 900,000 adult visits from 2011 to 2023 it found hot days raising visits for kidney failure, swelling, varicose veins, severe dehydration, leg injuries and accidental firearm discharge. [2]

It did not find the heart and lung link everyone expects. A study author says those patients are often coded for the complication that brought them in, such as failing kidneys. [2]

A German study of 2.83 million children's emergency visits found ear infections up 25% on the hottest days, newborn conditions up 57%, and called for child-specific heat thresholds. [4]

A meta-analysis of 21 studies covering 5.6 million pregnancies put a 5% rise in risk at a daily high of 30.6C. [5] It also found no agreed way to measure heat stress. [5]

A separate study estimates 580 million children under 10, over 40% of that age group, already face at least 20 extra dangerous heat-stress days a year. [6]

Why it matters. The test is August: Europe's count covers barely half the continent and stops before the month ended, so the summer total will rise before it settles. [3]

The US Supreme Court hears Suncor Energy v Boulder County on 5 October, the first case of its new term. [12] Nearly 70 outside briefs have been filed, from members of Congress to tribes and former military leaders. [12]

Why it matters. Nine years of American climate-damages suits, none yet at trial, could turn on it.

The US Interior Department is drafting a rule letting winter oil exploration in Alaska's 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve skip project-by-project environmental review. [13] Norway said the same week it will drill the Barents Sea whatever the EU decides, and asked its top court to restore three struck-down permits. [14][15]

Why it matters. Environmental review is where climate objections legally live, so shortening it removes the argument rather than answering it. Exxon is separately automating half its Permian rigs by 2028. [29]

A proposed EPA rule would end the Clean Air Act requirement that data-centre projects tell the public, through state agencies, how much pollution they will release. [16] Disclosure would become voluntary at state officials' discretion. [16]

Why it matters. A pollutant nobody has to report is a pollutant nobody can count, which is the lead story's problem in another form. Data centres are one of the drivers of the 3.6% annual growth in world electricity demand the IEA expects to 2030. [9]

Climate change cut the American West's typical snowpack by over a third and streamflows by about 13% from 2014 to 2024. [17] About half of that traces to emissions from 122 fossil-fuel and cement companies, a study in Communications Earth and Environment found. [17]

Why it matters. Attribution has moved from naming a cause to naming a share, and a share is what a damages claim needs.

Germany's environment agency withdrew carbon credits from 30 China-based projects that claimed to cut pollution from fossil-fuel extraction, including one bought by ExxonMobil. [18] Bloomberg obtained the January report through a freedom-of-information request. [18]

Why it matters. The credits were sold, used and counted before anyone checked whether the cuts had happened.

US credits proving a refiner blended biofuel fell to $1.75 on Monday, their lowest since 15 April, after the EPA extended a compliance deadline. [19] The White House is separately pressing for wider small-refinery exemptions, which Midwest attorneys general oppose. [20]

Why it matters. The credit is worth whatever the rule says it is worth, and US refineries are already running near maximum. [30]

Six months into the US-Iran war, Qatar's liquefied gas cargo exports have fallen to 18 from 509 a year earlier, a loss Reuters puts at about $24bn. [21] European gas stocks sit at record lows for the time of year. [21]

Why it matters. The trade is being redrawn, not just repriced: Sinopec is buying more Brazilian and African crude, and Iraq wants a bigger OPEC quota. [22][23]

Saudi Arabia awarded $1.16bn for 8 gigawatt-hours of battery storage across four sites, enough to run 2 gigawatts of power for four hours. [24] Europe added 36 GWh in 2025, up 48% on the year, passing 100 GWh in operation for the first time. [25]

Why it matters. Storage is what stops cheap midday solar being worthless: Portugal's largest solar plant entered administration this week as Iberian prices sagged. [26] Arizona and Nevada are buying too. [31][32]

Publishers watered down climate passages at Florida's request, cutting a marine-biology draft's line that climate change kills at least 150,000 people a year. [27] Elsewhere 'climate change' became 'changes in the environment'. [27]

Why it matters. The deleted sentence is exactly the kind of number this week was spent producing.