Climate, in brief

Pollution rules not enforced

The US EPA is reported to be about to scrap its carbon limits on coal and gas power plants. [2] Freeport LNG, a gas export plant in Texas, reported 532 pollution events outside its permits since 2019 and was fined seven times. [8]

Old power plants kept running

A US court said the Energy Department overstepped its powers keeping Michigan's 64-year-old Campbell coal plant open. [4] EDF, the French electricity company, borrowed 1 billion euros from investors to keep its nuclear reactors running for longer. [16]

Rain and heat past old records

Up to 7 inches of rain fell on coastal Connecticut in one Sunday morning. [10] Almost two-thirds of the 6 million US culverts, the pipes that carry streams under roads, were built for weaker storms than today's. [14] The mainland US had its warmest summer since records began in 1895. [13]

Doubts about nuclear safety

Chubu Electric, a Japanese power company, is reported to be dropping its plan to restart the Hamaoka nuclear plant, after problems with its earthquake safety data. [6] Russia's nuclear chief said Ukraine attacked trucks bringing diesel for the backup generators at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. [9]

2 pressures seen across the day run through Climate too.

• Old machines kept working longerBuilding ↑ · seen in 2 beats→
• Protections showing resultsSteady ↑ · seen in 2 beats→

1. 1The US environment agency is expected to scrap carbon limits on coal and gas power plants
2. 2Chubu Electric drops a nuclear restart
3. 3A Texas gas plant broke its permits 532 times
4. 4Diesel trucks attacked at Zaporizhzhia, Russia says
5. 5Flash floods hit New York, New Jersey and Connecticut

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US agency that sets pollution rules, is poised to repeal its carbon pollution standards for coal and gas power plants, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday. [2]

Watch whether Lee Zeldin announces the repeal in Houston this week, and then whether states or environmental groups take it to court. [1][2]

Also seen in Space.

Chubu Electric, a Japanese power company, is making final plans to withdraw its request to restart the Hamaoka nuclear plant, the broadcaster NHK reported on Friday. [6]

Earlier this year Japan's nuclear regulator paused its review of the restart, after Chubu said its earthquake safety data may have been put together dishonestly. [6]

Chubu's shares fell as much as 4.2% on the report. [6]

On Sunday NHK said the company's president, Kingo Hayashi, and chairman, Satoru Katsuno, will resign over the scandal, with an announcement expected on Monday. [7]

Japan's regulator stopped reviewing the restart once Chubu disclosed the problem with its earthquake data. [6]

Now the restart is reported to be over, and the company's two most senior bosses are expected to leave too. [6][7]

Freeport LNG, the third-biggest US exporter of liquefied natural gas, reported 532 pollution events outside its permits since 2019, the watchdog group Oilfield Witness found. [8]

The plant chills gas into a liquid so it can be shipped overseas in tankers. [8]

Texas's environmental regulator sent it 76 violation notices and issued seven fines, together $610,000, about 2% of the plant's estimated 2025 revenue. [8]

In 2024 part of the plant reported releasing 1,500 pounds of benzene, a chemical that can cause leukaemia. [8]

A former Texas regulator said the agency depends on companies' own reports of what they release, and prefers fixing problems to fining them. [8]

The watchdog says the regulator kept accepting the company's adjustments, and the same problems were reported again the next year. [8]

The US kept a Michigan coal plant open with 90-day emergency orders, writing a new one each time, until a court said there was no emergency.

Each break was handled as a one-off, the company's adjustment was accepted, and the same problem was reported again the next year, until the count reached 532.

Diesel generators are the backup for when the power lines fail, and for nearly three weeks in August and September they were the plant's only power.

Nobody had to look at the whole year of orders together until three states and environmental groups took them to court.

Alexei Likhachev, head of Russia's state nuclear company, said Ukrainian forces struck diesel fuel trucks near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Friday, killing two Russian servicemen. [9]

Zaporizhzhia, in Ukraine, is Europe's largest nuclear plant, with six reactors, and Russian forces have held it since the early weeks of the war in 2022. [9]

When both of its outside power lines are down, diesel generators keep the nuclear fuel cool. [9] Both lines were down for nearly three weeks in August and September. [9]

Each side regularly accuses the other of putting the plant at risk, and the report carries only Russia's account. [9]

The UN's nuclear watchdog keeps a team at the plant and helped arrange a local ceasefire last month so repairs could be made. [9]

Heavy rain on Sunday caused flash flooding across northern New Jersey, New York's Westchester County and coastal Connecticut. [10]

The coast from Norwalk to Westport got 6 to 7 inches (15 to 18 centimetres) of rain in one morning, at up to 4 inches an hour. [10]

Firefighters in Westport rescued 13 people trapped in cars, and crews in Paterson, New Jersey, rescued about 20. [10] Flash flood warnings also covered parts of Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. [11]

It landed hardest on commuters and drivers: trains to New Haven were delayed or cancelled, and many of the people rescued were stuck in cars. [10]

Paterson's mayor said there were no immediate reports of deaths. [10]

Himalayan glaciers are losing ice 65% faster than a decade ago, says a new report from the consultancy Systemiq, with technical help from a mountain research centre called ICIMOD. [12]

Only about 21 of the region's estimated 40,000 glaciers are watched closely year after year. [12]

Retreating glaciers leave lakes held back by loose rock and ice, and India's government lists 56 of these lakes as very high risk. [12]

The report follows floods in Nepal and Tibet that killed more than 1,300 people. [12]

The report estimates that Himalayan water supports about 20% of India's economy, through wheat, rice, tea and hydropower. [12]

The mountain states that hold the glaciers keep only about 5% of that value, it says. [12]

The mainland United States had its warmest summer since records began in 1895, according to data released on Wednesday by NOAA, the US weather and oceans agency. [13]

The average temperature from June to August was 74.4F, about 23.6C, across the 48 mainland states and Washington, DC. [13]

That beat the old record, set in 1936 during the Dust Bowl drought, by 0.4F. [13]

Much of the heat came from nights that would not cool down, especially in the West. [13]

The 1936 record had stood for 90 years. [13] Records go back to 1895, so this summer was the hottest of 132 measured. [13]

Culverts are the pipes and tunnels that carry streams and rainwater under roads. [14]

Almost two-thirds of the 6 million culverts in the United States were built to standards too weak for today's storms, according to the research group Headwaters Economics. [14]

Jessica Boakye, an engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, modelled what happens when they fail in one Massachusetts river valley with 783 culverts and a single hospital. [14]

In one scenario, 30% of the people there could not reach an emergency room. [14]

A failed culvert leaves people stranded and cut off from emergency services. [14] The study could only be done because county staff had inspected every culvert. [14]

Of Turkey's 240 lakes, 186 have dried up, and nearly 80% of the country's water resources are being taken for use, the BBC reports. [15]

Lake Kuyucuk, near the Armenian border, was 13 metres deep in 1997 and 1 metre deep by 2010. [15] Villagers' small dams on its streams and illegal wells had drained it. [15]

The ecologist Cagan Sekercioglu persuaded villagers to take the dams down, and it survives as a wetland rather than dust. [15]

Eastern Turkey's wetlands are a stop for birds flying between Africa and Eurasia, and hold 68% of the bird species found in Turkey. [15]

Lake Aktas, on the Georgian border, is the last lake in Turkey where both Dalmatian and great white pelicans still come. [15]

EDF, the French electricity company, sold 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) of green hybrid bonds on Tuesday 8 September. [16]

A bond is a loan from investors, and this money will pay for maintenance to keep EDF's nuclear reactors running for longer. [16] Investors offered more than 2.65 billion euros. [16]

That demand let EDF cut the interest rate it pays to 5.375%, from about 5.75% at first. [16]

Lenders offered more than twice what EDF asked for, so keeping its existing reactors going will cost it less in interest. [16]

Sizewell C, a new nuclear power station being built on England's Suffolk coast, has given the security and services company G4S a 10-year management contract. [17]

The contract is expected to create 400 jobs, many of them in Suffolk, in maintenance, cleaning and other site work. [17]

The plant costs 38 billion pounds and should be finished in the mid-to-late 2030s. [17]

At the peak of building, about 2,600 of the 7,900 workers on site will come from East Anglia, the surrounding region. [17]

For Suffolk the plant is a source of work for a decade before it makes electricity. [17]

The project also promises 1,500 apprenticeships, at least 540 of them for people from Suffolk. [17]

Joshua Kijape, a ranger in Kenya's Maasai Mara wildlife reserve, has patrolled for a year on an electric motorbike made by ROAM, a company in Nairobi. [18]

Its quiet motor lets him get close to animals, and poachers cannot hear him coming. [18]

Emboo River Camp in the Mara has run electric safari vehicles since 2019, charged only by solar power. [18]

Its co-founder says converting a petrol safari vehicle costs $35,000 to $45,000 and pays for itself in two and a half to three years. [18]

The Mara is one of the world's most demanding places to run a vehicle. [18]

Jason Knauf, who runs the Earthshot Prize, an environmental award, says success there strengthens the case for clean vehicles in other wild places and remote villages. [18]

Divers who survey Studland Bay in Dorset, on England's south coast, now see seahorses on every dive, says the founder of the Seahorse Trust. [19]

At one point the bay went two and a half years without a single sighting. [19]

Last year had the most sightings since the pandemic, when fewer boats came to the bay. [19]

There are now 87 special moorings that stop boat chains scraping the seagrass the seahorses need to breed. [19]

The seagrass grows in shallow water, where winter storms can tear it up. [19] A University of Southampton scientist says stormier, less predictable weather is a worry for it. [19]

Also seen in Mind & body.

Jersey's environment minister, Mary Le Hegarat, has lodged a plan to enlarge a zone around Les Ecrehous, about 10 kilometres north-east of the island, where parlour pots are banned. [20]

A parlour pot has two or more chambers and is very effective at catching lobsters. [20] Jersey's commercial lobster catch has fallen steadily since 2015. [20]

A report found that the zone, set up in 2018 after talks with French fishers, was a success but too small. [20]

A similar ban at Les Minquiers, south of Jersey, has been in place since 1997 and is generally agreed to have helped lobster stocks. [20]

Fishers in both Jersey and France back the bigger zone. [20]