Climate, in brief

Oil above $100 a barrel

Brent crude, the main world oil price, rose from $72.48 to $104.61 a barrel since February. [5] Syria's government raised the price of diesel by 40% on Saturday. [5] China's 70% electric car target is likely to be reached early because high oil prices are pushing buyers to switch, Bloomberg reported. [2]

The US government stepping back

Two development lenders are discussing dropping their climate targets after US pressure, the Financial Times reported. [2] US federal money for air pollution monitors has fallen by more than 35% in twenty years, after inflation. [3] The Trump administration cancelled a $500,000 grant that was meant to pay for air monitoring in 27 Louisiana communities. [3]

Land that stores carbon

Biomass permits in Indonesia now cover over 750,000 hectares of natural forest. [1] On the Isle of Man, a British island, bare peat left by old peat cutting is still collapsing into reservoirs. [13] Farmers in Uganda are less likely to join tree-planting carbon projects when the price they will be paid is uncertain, a study found. [12]

Fires in new places

The European Union's pool of firefighters lent between countries grew from 236 in 2022 to nearly 800 this summer. [11] Two grass fires in Stourbridge, in the English Midlands, destroyed 19 homes on the hottest day of the year. [14] Wildfire smoke is reaching more communities in the US, Grist reports. [3]

One pressure seen across the day runs through Climate too.

• Diesel and oil getting dearerHigh ↑ · seen in 4 beats→

1. 1Japan is buying six times more Indonesian wood pellets than two years ago, and biomass permits now cover 750,000 hectares of Indonesian forest
2. 2Development lenders may drop climate targets
3. 3China aims for 70% electric car sales
4. 4US air monitors are halving, and states limit residents' own
5. 5China Gas signs a 20-year deal for US gas

Watch whether Japan tightens its checks on where imported pellets come from; researchers at the Global Environmental Forum say loopholes will let pellets linked to forest loss into Japan for years. [1]

At least two big development lenders, which lend to poorer countries for things like roads and power, are discussing scrapping their climate-finance targets, the Financial Times reported. [2]

They are the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank, according to people familiar with the talks. [2]

It follows the World Bank, which said in June it would retire its goal of sending 45% of its money to projects that also help the climate. [2]

The FT said this came after intense US pressure. [2]

Countries agreed to raise at least $300bn a year for developing nations by 2035. [2] Removing the targets would make that harder for rich countries to meet, the FT says. [2]

China's new five-year plan for its car industry sets a goal for 70% of new passenger cars and 40% of new commercial vehicles sold by 2030 to be 'new energy vehicles', Bloomberg reported. [2]

That is China's term for battery, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen cars.

Bloomberg said the 70% goal is likely to be reached early, because high oil prices are pushing buyers to switch. [2]

The plan also wants several Chinese carmakers among the world's ten biggest by sales. [2]

The goal covers the world's biggest car market, and the plan also backs Chinese car companies in growing their business abroad. [2]

Also seen in World, Finance and Food.

The number of government air pollution monitors in the US fell by nearly half over 20 years, according to EPA data analysed by the newsroom Floodlight. [3]

Louisiana, Ohio and Kentucky have passed similar laws, backed by chemical or manufacturing trade groups, that stop regulators using residents' own air readings for enforcement unless the equipment meets EPA standards. [3]

That equipment typically costs tens of thousands of dollars. [3] For 71 of the 100 biggest industrial polluters studied, no government monitor in the state measures the chemical they release most. [3]

Black and low-income Americans carry a larger share of the cancer risk from toxic air, according to the EPA. [3]

In three states, residents living near that pollution now have fewer public monitors and less use for their own. [3]

China Gas Holdings, a Chinese gas company, will buy 500,000 tonnes a year of US liquefied natural gas from Venture Global for twenty years from 2030, the companies said on Monday. [4]

Liquefied gas is gas chilled into a liquid so it can travel by ship. [4]

China stopped importing US liquefied gas in March 2025 after its own tariffs on US energy took effect, and it still charges a 15% tax on it. [4]

The deal came ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected trip to the United States this month. [4]

A Chinese buyer is committing to US gas for two decades while a tariff is still in place.

The deal brings Venture Global's long-term sales to China Gas to 2.5 million tonnes a year. [4]

Biomass plants already certified in Japan are paid subsidies for up to 20 years, and a buyer that steady lets pellet firms in Indonesia plan years ahead.

A good price that might disappear moves fewer of them.

The study measured the step: uncertainty about the price cut the chance of joining by 4%, as much as four extra dollars of pay would add.

The buyer locked in gas from 2030 to 2050 while a 15% tariff is still in place, and the seller gained two decades of sales it can build on.

To win approval, the companies stretched a household bill credit from two years to four, so families can count on it for longer.

Workers count cheap power as part of their pay, so every union in the sector called a strike against a proposal to phase it out.

The plant in Japan never sees the forest where the Polahi live.

Anyone who pays a power bill sits somewhere in a chain like this and sees only their own part of it.

The 11 BRICS nations, a club of big emerging economies including Brazil, Russia, India and China, issued a declaration at their summit in New Delhi on Saturday. [2]

It said fossil fuels have an 'important role' and called for a 'just, orderly, equitable and inclusive' move to clean energy. [2]

It also said each country's path should depend on its own circumstances. [2]

The declaration called for more cooperation on smart grids, energy storage and critical minerals, the Times of India reported. [2]

It sets out where these eleven governments stand two months before COP31, the UN climate summit in Turkey. [7]

Xi Jinping told the summit that poorer countries must push for the Paris Agreement to be fully carried out. [2]

Syria's government raised the price of diesel by 40% on Saturday, to 175 Syrian pounds, or $1.32, a litre. [5]

Protesters burned tyres and blocked the highway between Damascus and Aleppo, the widest protests since Bashar al-Assad was toppled almost two years ago. [5] Diesel has more than doubled since February. [5]

The energy ministry said the rise was temporary and caused by higher world prices, Syria's reliance on imports and a three-month shutdown of its biggest refinery, at Baniyas. [5]

The United Nations estimates 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line. [5]

Syria has relied on Russian crude, and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries have led Russia to limit its diesel and petrol exports. [5]

NextEra Energy, which owns Florida Power & Light, and Dominion Energy, which powers about 3.6 million homes and businesses in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, want to merge. [6]

On Monday they offered Virginia more: a $10 monthly bill credit for households would last four years instead of two. [6]

That would mostly be paid for by ending credits that were meant to go to large data centres. [6] They also promised 600 new jobs. [6]

Virginia's regulator holds a hearing in mid-November. [6]

Virginia hosts a huge cluster of data centres, and voters are frustrated about their effect on power bills. [6]

Governor Abigail Spanberger has said she is deeply sceptical that the deal is good for the state. [6]

UK ministers have pushed back a decision on Jackdaw, a new gas field in the North Sea, until October at the earliest, the Financial Times reported. [2]

The Labour party faces a by-election, a single-seat election, against the Green party in the seat of former prime minister Keir Starmer. [2]

The Green party's leader, Zack Polanski, is standing and has said a vote for him is a vote against Jackdaw. [2]

A Labour official disputed that anything had been delayed, saying no date had ever been set. [2]

Jackdaw has been stuck in years of legal and political fights, the FT says. [2] One Labour figure called the delay a political decision. [2]

Turkey will host COP31, the UN climate summit, in November. [7] Australia will chair the negotiations, under a deal in which it withdrew its own bid to host. [2]

Turkey's environment minister, Murat Kurum, told journalists that the final decision lies with Turkey, Climate Home News reported. [2]

It is the first UN climate summit with its powers split between two countries. [2]

Australia's climate minister Chris Bowen, who leads the talks, said he needs all 194 countries to agree. [7]

Climate Home News says it is still unclear how the summit will be run if the two hosts disagree. [2]

Bowen also says renewables now make about half of Australia's electricity, up from 33% when his government took office. [7]

French energy unions said on 8 September they were preparing to strike the following Tuesday, 15 September. [8]

They oppose a July recommendation by France's Court of Auditors, a public spending watchdog, to limit pay rises and phase out cheap gas and electricity for workers and retirees. [8]

The auditors estimated the discount cost EDF, France's state-owned power company, over 700 million euros in 2024. [8] Unions see the discount as a core part of their pay. [8]

A strike could disrupt gas deliveries while Europe refills its storage before winter, and could cause power cuts.

A government official said changes such as an allowance based on use were being discussed. [8]

Trucks, rigs and pumps sold at US auctions are being shipped from a yard near Houston to the Venezuelan oil ports of Guanta and Maracaibo, Reuters reported. [9]

The rush began after the US raid that captured Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro on 3 January. [9]

The US government has switched from sanctions to backing a $100 billion plan to rebuild Venezuela's oil industry. [9]

Venezuela pumps about 1.25 million barrels a day, down from over 3 million in the late 1990s. [9]

Much of the gear has thousands of hours of use and no warranty, and insurers are reluctant to cover it without maintenance records. [9]

The shipping firm's next two loads carry its largest rigs yet. [9]

A study published on 11 September in a Nature journal found no significant speed-up in drought across about 99% of the world's land from 1981 to 2024. [10]

Earlier studies found drought accelerating using a common way of estimating how much water the air pulls out of the land. [10]

The authors say that method overstates it, producing drying trends at least six times stronger than a method based on energy. [10]

Drought estimates feed into how countries plan for climate risk, the authors say. [10] This is one study, set against several earlier ones that found drought speeding up. [10]

The European Union sends firefighters on loan from one country to high-risk regions in another, coordinated from a round-the-clock centre in Brussels, the New York Times reported. [11]

The programme started in 2022 with 236 firefighters and had nearly 800 this summer. [11] Estonian crews fought fires in Sardinia and Romanian crews in France. [11]

Sardinia used the programme to place firefighters in advance for the first time this year, and the EU is building its own fleet of firefighting planes and helicopters. [11]

Fire seasons are getting longer and reaching more of Europe. [11] Whether the shared force can grow as fast as the fires is still an open question. [11]

A study published on 14 September looked at why farmers in rural Uganda join projects that pay them to grow trees among their crops, in return for carbon credits. [12]

Each extra dollar of pay raised the chance of joining by about 1%. [12]

Farmers who had grown trees before were 22% more likely to join, and those hit by climate disasters 14% more likely. [12] Uncertainty about the price lowered it by 4%. [12]

The researchers put a benchmark payment at about $54 per hectare a year in that setting. [12]

They point to predictable payments and floor prices as ways to bring more farmers in. [12]

Peat is soil built from half-rotted plants over thousands of years, and it stores more carbon than any other soil. [13]

On the Isle of Man, an island between Britain and Ireland, people cut peat to burn for heat for generations, until it was banned in 2020. [13]

The bare faces are still collapsing into reservoirs. [13] A team of three now reshapes them with a light digger and covers them with netting so plants can grow back. [13]

Wet, healthy peat can be up to 90% water, so it holds back floods and resists fire.

After one repair last year, dragonflies laid eggs in the new pools almost at once. [13]

On 13 August, the hottest day of the year, two fires started by accident and spread through dry grass into a housing estate in Stourbridge, in the English West Midlands. [14]

Nineteen families lost their homes. [14] One couple who had lived there for 19 years lost every family photograph and were told a rebuild could take up to two years. [14]

After a month with friends and in a hotel, they were due to move into a temporary home that weekend. [14]

The loss runs on long after the fire. The couple say they will rebuild, but getting over it will take far longer than two years. [14]