Climate, in brief

Britain registered 99,199 battery-electric cars in September, a record, up 36.3% on a year earlier and 28.3% of all new cars, the carmakers' trade group SMMT says. [1]

Counting plug-in hybrids, cars with a plug were 45.3% of September's sales. Petrol cars fell from 45.2% to 37.6% of the market in a year. [1]

Britain's rule, the zero-emission vehicle mandate, requires 33% of each carmaker's sales this year to be electric, up from 28% in 2025. [1]

Carmakers can earn credits and borrow from later years to avoid fines, so New AutoMotive, a group Electrek cites, puts the real 2026 target at 24.6%. [1]

There are 178 electric models on sale in Britain, more than double the 2023 count and about twice the US choice. [1] Electrek, an electric car news site, says the mandate made carmakers bring them and cut their prices. [1]

SMMT's chief, Mike Hawes, credited more models and high fuel prices for the record. He wants the targets brought closer to demand in a government review. [1]

In the US, Ford sold 6,047 electric cars from July to September, 80% fewer than a year earlier, including just 289 F-150 Lightning pickups. [2]

A year earlier, US buyers rushed to claim a $7,500 federal tax credit before it ended on 30 September 2025, so this quarter is measured against a rush. [3]

Tesla delivered 486,532 cars worldwide, 2.1% fewer than its all-time record in that rush quarter, but about 25,000 more than Wall Street expected. [3]

Electric cars have been about 6% to 7% of US car sales this year, down from a peak above 10% in 2025, Electrek reports. [4] Rivian, a US electric carmaker, still delivered 58% more than in the previous three months as its smaller R2 arrived. [4]

Kia's electric car registrations in Europe rose 58% from January to August. Its entry-level electric car there, the EV2, from 26,600 euros in Germany, is not coming to the US. [5]

Volvo Cars withdrew its sales forecast after selling 11% fewer cars in the quarter. It blamed China and a slow US, and said Europe remains resilient. [6]

Why it matters. Watch the UK government's review of the mandate: if it gives carmakers more credit for plug-in hybrids, Electrek expects more hybrids and slower growth in fully electric sales. [1]

California, New York and two dozen other states, cities and counties sued the US Transportation Department on Friday. [9] They want back the stricter fuel-economy rule it cut on Monday, from an average of 50.4 to 34.9 miles a gallon for 2031 cars. [9] Five environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, filed a separate suit the same day. [10] NHTSA, the department's road-safety agency, estimates a new car's driver will pay $1,624 more for fuel over the car's life. [11]

Why it matters. The states say drivers lose nearly $220 billion in fuel savings. [9] Congress had already set the fine for missing the federal target at zero. [12] That leaves California's own emissions rules, which 18 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted, as the main limit on carmakers. [12]

The average price of diesel in Britain rose above 2 pounds a litre for the first time, the RAC, a British motoring group, said. [13] Filling a family car with diesel now costs about 110 pounds, almost 32 pounds more than when the war with Iran began. [13] More than half of Britain's diesel is imported, and about 17% of its supply comes from the US. [13] On Friday, EU governments discussed a French plan to release 50 million barrels of their emergency diesel. [14]

Why it matters. President Donald Trump has threatened to stop US diesel exports unless Europe releases more of its reserves, and a ban would push prices up in Britain and the EU, the BBC reports. [13] Dear diesel also raises the cost of moving goods and growing food, so it reaches people who never fill a tank. [13]

Nearly 160,000 medium and heavy electric lorries were sold worldwide in the first half of 2026, about 75% more than a year earlier, BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, counts. [15] More than nine in ten were sold in China, which BloombergNEF says has strong policies and its own battery supply chain. [15] About one truck in five sold in China is now electric. [15] In the US the market is near a standstill after tax credits ended and grants were frozen. [15]

Why it matters. Dearer diesel since the Iran war makes an electric lorry pay back its higher price faster. [15] In the first half, China exported more than twice as many electric tractor units, the front part that pulls a trailer, as in all of 2025, Bloomberg News reports. [15]

Denmark's parliament has passed an emergency law that ends first-come, first-served connections to its electricity grid. [16] Grid companies, led by the state-owned operator Energinet, will sort applicants into four groups. [16] Vital public services, new homes and ordinary use come first, then electric transport, heating, industry and renewable power. [16] Batteries come third and the largest users, such as data centres, last, and those two groups can be refused when there is no room. [16]

Why it matters. Denmark's climate minister, Samira Nawa, called the state of the grid deeply serious. [16] The law starts on 12 October, and Finland is considering a similar system. [16]

Since 1 October, any project in Japan granted a grid connection must prove within two months that it has the right to use its site, or lose its place. [17] The rule comes from OCCTO, which coordinates Japan's power grids, and the industry ministry. [17] At the end of 2025, about 172 gigawatts of grid batteries were waiting for a grid study, against 0.64 gigawatts actually connected. [17] At the end of September 2024 the queue was about 88 gigawatts. [17]

Why it matters. Japan's industry ministry says projects with little chance of being built were holding places, slowing the ones that could connect. [17] It is the third rule this year aimed at the queue, after a cap on how many studies one company may ask for. [17]

Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company, said on Friday it had found more oil in very deep water off Amapa state. [18] The find is a second, deeper layer in the Morpho well, where it first found oil in August. [18] The well is in the Foz do Amazonas basin, at the mouth of the Amazon, which Petrobras calls its most promising new oil frontier. [18] Its chief executive, Magda Chambriard, said three more wells will test whether production would pay. [18]

Why it matters. The rocks there resemble those off Guyana, where ExxonMobil is developing huge oil fields. [18] Petrobras still needs licences for seven more wells in a basin Reuters describes as environmentally sensitive. [18]

About 40 people have died in the floods, some drowned and some electrocuted, the Thai government says. [19] In parts of Bangkok roughly 300mm of rain fell in about two days, as much as London gets in half a year. [19] All 50 of the city's districts are declared a flood disaster, and thousands of people stayed in more than 230 shelters. [19] At one point this week about half of Thai Airways' staff could not get to work. [19]

Why it matters. Bangkok sits on the floodplain of the Chao Phraya river and drains through canals, pumps and dikes. [19] Building over much of the canal network has left the city unable to cope with rain this heavy, the Guardian reports. [19]

Torrential rain from 24 to 27 September pushed the Gandak river, also called the Narayani, to record levels in Nepal and India, NASA reports. [20] A gauge at Devghat in Nepal reached 11.94 metres on 27 September, the highest since measurements began in the 1960s. [20] Water broke through embankments and flooded farms and towns for hundreds of kilometres, including parts of Bagaha in India. [20]

Why it matters. News reports say hundreds of villages were hit and thousands of people driven from their homes. [20] The river runs from Nepal's mountains into India, so the rain in one country flooded villages in the other. [20]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees US power markets, on Thursday rejected TransAlta's plan to recover $19.9 million for keeping its Centralia coal plant in Washington state open. [21] The US Energy Department ordered the 730-megawatt plant to stay open in December, and has renewed the 90-day order since. [21] The plant made no electricity this year, through July. [21] FERC said TransAlta may still be paid, but only by power buyers in the Northwest. [21]

Why it matters. TransAlta had wanted grid operators as far away as California and the central US to share the bill. [21] Washington state's government and public power companies had argued nothing was owed for a plant that was not running, and FERC disagreed. [21]

January to August 2026 was the hottest such stretch in the lower 48 US states since records began in 1895, according to NOAA, the US weather agency. [22] It averaged 57.98F, just above the 2012 record for those months. [22] The climate scientist Zeke Hausfather puts the chance that 2026 beats 2024 as the hottest full year at about 80%. [22] A NOAA spokesperson said its data do not settle that yet. [22]

Why it matters. To miss the record, the last four months would need to be cooler than a typical recent autumn, Hausfather says. [22] Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown University, says a very strong El Nino could make 2027 worse. [22]

Germany's grid regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, has approved long-awaited rules for batteries and for car chargers that can send power back. [23] Until now, a battery storing subsidised solar power had to keep it apart from power bought from the grid. [23] Now a battery can charge from the grid when power is cheap and sell it back when it is dear, without losing its solar support. [23] Two-way car chargers count the same way. [23]

Why it matters. Germany's solar industry group called the rules a long-awaited key to using solar and grid power in one battery. [23] It says batteries can now make better use of the grid already built, once meter and network operators put the rules in place. [23]

Buenos Aires held its first Chinese car show on Friday, with more than 20 Chinese brands. [24] Argentina lets in up to 50,000 electric and hybrid cars this year without tariffs. [24] Chinese brands took 10% of car sales in August, up from about 2% late last year, and BYD, a Chinese electric carmaker, is already the ninth best-selling brand. [24] China is expected to export about 12 million cars this year, up from about 3 million in 2022. [25]

Why it matters. Ford's chief executive, Jim Farley, said on Tuesday that it is too late for Europe to hold back Chinese carmakers. [25] The US keeps them out with tariffs above 100% and a ban on Chinese car software. [25]

European seas averaged 21.6C from June to August, the highest in 45 years of data, a Reuters analysis found. [26] A marine heatwave is five or more days of water well above its usual temperature. [26] The Bay of Biscay, off France and Spain, had 186 such days by the end of August. [26] In the 1980s it had only a handful a year. [26]

Why it matters. A marine ecologist at the University of Oviedo estimates that about 95% of the big kelp stands off Asturias in northern Spain have gone since 2010. [26] Kelp needs water below about 20C, and the fish and shellfish that small fishing fleets there live on depend on it. [26]

The BlueGreen Alliance, a US campaign group that tracks clean-energy jobs, has published a map of 3,446 manufacturing projects it says have been hurt by Republican policy changes. [27] The harms include lost tax credits, grants cancelled or delayed, and factories cancelled or stalled. [27] Lost tax credits are the largest group. [27] An earlier report by the group put the losses at more than 111,000 jobs and $82 billion of investment. [27]

Why it matters. The tax credits were cut by a law Republicans in Congress passed in 2025. [27] The new map lists jobs and money affected on each project but gives no new total, so it shows where the cuts landed rather than their full size. [27]

Amanda Blanc, head of the insurer Aviva, said England is building homes that may one day be impossible to insure because of flooding. [28] On current plans about 115,000 new homes will go up in flood zones in the next decade, she told the BBC. [28] Aviva's research found one in nine homes built from 2022 to 2024 is at medium to high flood risk. [28] About 6.3 million homes and businesses in England are at risk of flooding. [28]

Why it matters. The Met Office estimates that record wet winters like 2023-24 have gone from once in 80 years to once in 20 at today's warming. [28] Blanc said homes built next to flood zones also need to be built differently. [28]

San Clemente, a California beach town of 62,000 people, votes in November on a 1% sales tax to pay for sand and wildfire protection. [29] Rising seas and higher waves have split its North Beach, and crumbling cliffs keep closing a coastal railway, AP reports. [29] The 7-mile stretch is part of a 351-mile line linking San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo. [29] The city says it is short of about 3 million cubic yards of sand. [29]

Why it matters. Trucking that much sand in would take 300,000 trips, the city manager says. [29] The railway also carries freight and military traffic, so the erosion reaches well beyond one beach. [29]

A pilot wind turbine in Schipkau, eastern Germany, has reached its full height of 365 metres, the tallest in the world. [30] Its hub sits 300 metres up, where winds are stronger and steadier. [30] GICON, which built it for Germany's innovation agency SPRIND, says it could make about twice the energy of a normal turbine with the same blades. [30] It is rated at 3.8 megawatts and is due to start up in November. [30]

Why it matters. GICON says Germany's existing wind farms could hold up to 4,000 such turbines above the ones already there, with no new land. [30] That is an estimate, and the extra output has not yet been shown in operation. [30]

DTE Energy, a Detroit power company, has finished a 100-megawatt solar farm near Coldwater, Michigan, paid for by Ford. [31] The $194 million Cold Creek farm can power about 23,000 to 25,000 homes. [31] It is the first of several DTE projects meant to supply Ford's Michigan factories. [31] Ford agreed in 2022 to buy up to 650 megawatts of renewable power. [31]

Why it matters. Ford now aims to build every vehicle it makes in Michigan on carbon-free electricity by the end of 2027. [31] The goal was 2025 when the deal was signed, and the new announcement does not say why it moved. [31]

Spain's first test-scale floating solar plant at sea has started tests in the Port of Valencia. [32] Its two 500-kilowatt platforms were built by BlueNewables with Naturgy, a Spanish energy company. [32] They are named after Paiporta and Catarroja, two towns hit by the 2024 DANA storm. [32] The trial runs for two years, paid for with Spanish and EU recovery money. [32]

Why it matters. Floating panels can go where land is scarce or the grid is crowded, such as ports and islands. [32] The test will show what they cost to run and repair in salt water. [32]

SIAD, an Italian chemical and engineering group, has opened a 2-megawatt plant near Caserta that splits water into hydrogen. [33] It runs only on a 2.37-megawatt solar field and a battery. [33] The hydrogen will be compressed and sold to factories. [33] The project cost more than 12 million euros, 8 million of it from Italy's recovery fund. [33]

Why it matters. SIAD says the hydrogen is for industrial uses where running directly on electricity is hard. [33] Two thirds of the cost came from public money. [33]

Vermont Gas, a gas utility, will pay for and own the underground pipes that heat and cool new affordable homes at Riggs Meadow in Hinesburg, Vermont. [34] Ground-source heat pumps move heat between the ground and the buildings through those pipes. [34] The ground stays at a steady temperature, so the system works in cold winters and hot summers. [34] The development has 44 homes for people on low and moderate incomes, and 36 of them will use ground heat. [34]

Why it matters. The upfront cost of the pipes usually keeps affordable housing from using ground heat. [34] For the gas company, owning the pipes is a way to offer heating and cooling that run on electricity. [34]

Beacon of Hope, a food pantry in Marshall, North Carolina, has installed 56 solar panels and three batteries. [35] They can run its lights, internet, heating, cooling and fridges when the grid fails. [35] The $100,000 system cost the pantry nothing: it came from a $5 million state programme for 24 microgrids, small grids that can run on their own. [35] Hurricane Helene's floods nearly wiped out Marshall's downtown two years ago. [35]

Why it matters. The pantry feeds 1,700 families a month and it kept its power through Helene. [35] Bigger microgrids are stuck because they need foreign parts that federal funding rules do not allow without a waiver. [35]

The Holei Sea Arch, a 27-metre lava-rock arch on Hawaii's Big Island, has fallen into the Pacific, the US National Park Service said. [36] It formed about 550 years ago. [36] It was standing on 23 September and gone by 27 September, and probably fell while the park was closed for Tropical Storm Nolo. [36] Earthquakes during the 2018 Kilauea eruption had damaged the cliffs. [36]

Why it matters. The park service warned in 2021 that the arch would fall. [36] It says new arches will form as the cliff slowly moves inland. [36]

The US Coast Guard said on Friday it had stopped a cargo ship, the Grace, carrying fuel to Cuba on 5 September. [37] It said the ship used tricks to hide where it was going, and that it seized a smaller boat earlier this summer. [37] The Trump administration is enforcing a fuel blockade meant to force political change in Cuba. [37] The Coast Guard said only that intelligence showed the fuel was bound there. [37]

Why it matters. The New York Times says the blockade has helped cripple Cuba's economy and caused wide suffering among its 8 to 10 million people. [37] The Times says the US is now using the military, not just tariff threats, to cut off Cuba's fuel. [37]

Prospectors filed 16 mining claims on 11 September, the first day that land cut from Bears Ears National Monument in Utah reopened. [38] President Trump shrank the monument by about 90% in July. [38] Thirteen claims came from Kimmerle Mining, a family firm in Moab, and the claimants appear interested in uranium. [38] Bears Ears was created in 2016 to protect 1.35 million acres. [38]

Why it matters. The July order also disbanded the tribal commission that helped run the monument. [38] A claim is only the first step towards a mine, and environmental groups expect more claims to follow. [38]