Climate, in brief

FERC, the US agency that regulates power grids, on Friday 9 October rejected the core of PJM's plan for connecting data centres. [1][2]

PJM runs the biggest US power grid, across 13 states and Washington DC, and serves 67 million people. [2][3]

Under the plan, a new data centre using 50 megawatts or more had two choices. It could pay for enough new power supply to cover all its use, or risk being cut off first in a power emergency. [2]

Fifty megawatts is about enough electricity for 22,000 homes, by an estimate from Malaysia's central bank. [6]

FERC said choosing which homes and businesses lose power is a job for the states. It also said the plan appeared to treat big users unfairly. [1]

FERC approved one smaller part: a registry listing where each data centre is, when it switches on and how fast its use will grow. [1][2]

Data centre demand on PJM's grid is forecast to triple by 2030, to about 29 gigawatts. [2]

What PJM pays power plants to stay ready for its hardest hours has risen more than 1,000% since 2024. The grid is still 6.8 gigawatts short. [2][3]

David Rosner, one of FERC's commissioners, said data centres that are not critical should lose power before homes, hospitals and schools. He said state regulators should write that order. [1]

Analysts at Jefferies, an investment bank, said the ruling may keep those payments higher for longer. That helps plant owners such as Constellation, NRG, Talen and Vistra. [1]

Two days before the ruling, the US Energy Department told PJM that data centres, not households, must pay for the new power they need. It appears to be the department's first such filing at FERC in at least five years. [3]

Other US grids are trying the same trade. In Texas, a big user that agrees to be switched off when local lines are full can connect sooner. [4]

Why it matters. Watch whether Ohio and Pennsylvania write their own rules on who is cut first, which Jefferies expects to shape any revived PJM plan. [1]

UK ministers are preparing to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, sources told the Guardian. [5] The scheme gives households in England and Wales 7,500 pounds towards a heat pump, an electric machine that heats a home instead of a gas boiler. [5] It has paid for nearly 80,000 since 2022, from a 2.7 billion pound budget. [5] The UK's energy department must find more than 2 billion pounds of savings to help fund defence. [5] Ministers are also expected to approve the Jackdaw gas field as soon as this week. [5]

Why it matters. Octopus Energy's chief executive says the grant brings a heat pump's cost down to a gas boiler's, so a cut lands on households still deciding whether to switch. [5] The UK's energy department says the savings are a small part of a growing budget. [5]

Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, which coordinates rich countries' emergency oil stocks, has written to member governments asking them to release diesel faster. [17] In March they agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil. [17] An internal document seen by Euronews says 326 million have gone out. [17] He asked every member to say whether it could release more diesel, how much and when. [17] The IEA's governing board meets on 15 October to review the answers. [17]

Why it matters. Diesel prices have soared because the Iran war disrupted shipping from the Gulf and damaged refineries. [17] The price of diesel for later delivery in Europe fell about 3% on Monday morning, to about $1,437 a tonne. [17]

About 300 residents of Batam, an Indonesian island near Singapore, stormed a data centre park, angry that their taps had run dry. [6] One protester said no water had come through her tap for three months. [6] The island's 1.3 million people rely on rain stored in six man-made reservoirs. [6] Officials blame a long dry spell and deny that water meant for homes goes to data centres. [6] After earlier protests, they told new data centres to build their own plants that turn seawater into fresh water. [6]

Why it matters. Officials expect Batam's data centres to need more than 1,100 megawatts by 2030, enough for nearly a million homes. [6] A typical AI data centre uses as much electricity as 100,000 households, researchers writing in The Conversation say. [7]

Most officials who spoke at a Virginia hearing on Friday asked regulators to block NextEra Energy's purchase of Dominion Energy, or to attach strict conditions. [8] Dominion is Virginia's monopoly power company, and the deal would create the largest electric utility in the US. [8] Speakers want data centres to pay for their own wires and power. [8] Union and business leaders backed the deal for its jobs. [8] Virginia's State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities there, is due to decide in January. [8]

Why it matters. The hearing turned on the same question as the PJM ruling: whether data centres or households pay for new power. [8] Public hearings by phone follow on 5, 9 and 10 November. [8]

Sunday's flash flood on Nepal's Budhi Gandaki river began when a landslide blocked the river near the village of Chumchure. [33][34] ICIMOD, a mountain research centre, says early accounts suggest the blockage then gave way. [34] The flood destroyed or damaged five bridges, dozens of houses and the building sites of three hydropower plants. [33] Rescuers have taken about 95 people to safety, nine of them foreigners, and five people are missing. [33][34] More than 100 foreign trekkers are stranded where trails were washed away. [34]

Why it matters. Nepal's government says an early warning let most people reach higher ground before the water came. [33] In August a glacier collapse on a nearby river caused a flood that killed 1,457 people. [34]

Negotiators from 196 parties meet in Yerevan, Armenia's capital, from 19 to 30 October for COP17, the UN summit on protecting nature. [18] It falls halfway between the Kunming-Montreal nature deal and that deal's deadline. [18] The UN body that runs the talks says countries are off track on 22 of the deal's 23 targets. [18] The last summit, COP16 in Colombia in 2024, was suspended when countries could not agree on money. [18]

Why it matters. Poorer countries with the most wildlife want a new nature fund run by the convention itself. [18] Richer countries mostly want to keep the existing one, the Global Environment Facility. [18]

Eskom, South Africa's state power company, has asked developers to apply to join a plan for up to 6 gigawatts of solar, wind and battery projects. [9] Eskom itself will bring at least 2 gigawatts of solar and a battery that can deliver 1 gigawatt for four hours. [9] Chosen partners will sit on a panel for five years, and each project will be financed on its own. [9] Eskom still relies on coal, and on costly diesel plants for peak hours. [9]

Why it matters. South Africa has passed 10 gigawatts of solar, after adding 1.6 gigawatts in 2025. [9] Analysts warn that rules favouring Eskom's coal plants could put private builders off. [9]

South Korea's climate and energy ministry has published draft rules for a 'contract market' that replaces its renewable power quota from 1 January 2027. [10] KEPCO, the state power company, will sign long-term fixed-price deals with winning solar and wind projects. [10] When the market pays less than the agreed price, KEPCO tops the project up each month. [10] When the market pays more, the project hands the extra back. [10] The cost is passed on through power bills. [10] The first tender is due early in 2027. [10]

Why it matters. About 210,000 plants, with 35.4 gigawatts between them, are registered under the old quota system. [10] Bids will be scored on price and also on whether local people accept them and how they affect the grid. [10]

Europe is installing more energy storage than the US this year, for the first time, says Wood Mackenzie, an energy research firm. [12] That puts Europe second only to China. [12] World demand for storage is growing by close to 30% in 2026. [12] Australia has overtaken Germany in home batteries, with more than half a million fitted under a subsidy. [12] Home battery sales in the US are shrinking this year as tax credits become harder to get. [12]

Why it matters. Poland is now the top emerging market, helped by auctions that pay for ready power and a grid short of flexible supply. [12] India will make new solar and wind farms from July 2027 add batteries equal to at least a tenth of their size. [12]

Americans bought 266,630 electric cars from July to September, Kelley Blue Book, a car-pricing firm, estimates. [21] That is 7.7% more than the quarter before, and the most since a record quarter a year ago. [21] Electric cars were 6.5% of new car sales, up from 5.8%. [21] Sales are still 38.6% below a year ago, when buyers rushed before a $7,500 federal tax credit ended. [21] Used Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickups now sell in about 20 days, less than half the usual time. [22]

Why it matters. Cox Automotive, a car-industry firm, says petrol above $4 a gallon makes electric cars look better than ever. [21] Ford stopped building the Lightning last December because its expensive versions were not selling. [22]

Volkswagen says its new family of smaller electric cars has nearly 150,000 orders since production began in June. [23] They include the VW ID. Polo, which starts at 24,995 euros. [23] In Germany, VW's home market, orders for fully electric cars now outnumber orders for petrol and diesel cars, Electrek reports. [23] VW's sales chief, Martin Sander, credits high fuel prices and the cheaper new models. [23]

Why it matters. Outside Europe it is going the other way: VW's electric sales are down 78% in the US and 43% in China this year. [23] Its board has approved a plan to cut up to 100,000 jobs worldwide. [23]

CRE, France's energy regulator, has proposed the rules for the country's first long-term 'capacity auction', for the winter of 2030-31. [11] In such an auction, power plants, batteries and big users are paid to promise they will be ready, or will cut their use, when demand peaks. [11] CRE proposed buying 82 gigawatts and keeping its two price caps, of 72 euros and 15 euros per kilowatt. [11] France's grid operator puts the extra power needed at up to 2.5 gigawatts. [11]

Why it matters. CRE says it chose cautious settings to keep the cost to consumers down. [11] It expects batteries to play a growing part. [11]

A new California law, the Home Energy Choice Act, will let households due a new gas service pipe take cash to switch to electric appliances instead. [15] Replacing one pipe typically costs Pacific Gas and Electric, a big California utility, $20,000 to $30,000. [15] All its gas customers pay that off over the pipe's life. [15] The cash offered will be less than the pipe would cost, so the saving is shared. [15] Utilities have until 1 January 2028 to get their programmes approved. [15]

Why it matters. San Diego Gas & Electric and SoCalGas opposed the law, saying the customers who stay on gas will end up paying more to keep the pipes running. [15] Programmes are capped at 1% of a utility's customers, and the law ends in 2035 unless it is renewed. [15]

Hurricane Isaias cut power to about 950,000 homes and businesses at its peak, says the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group. [31] About 160,000 in Florida and Alabama were still without power on Monday, three days after landfall. [31] Florida Power & Light, the hardest-hit utility, cut its estimate of how fast it could restore power after finding worse tree damage. [31] Nearly 63% of offshore oil output in the US Gulf was paused before the storm. [31]

Why it matters. FPL says its buried power lines did more than eight times better than overhead ones. [31] It also says its smart grid equipment avoided more than 130,000 outages. [31]

US forecasters issued a tropical storm watch for southern California for only the second time ever as storm Rachel approached on 9 October. [32] Rachel's rain flooded streets in Las Vegas, and San Diego's airport got more than an inch, double its usual October total. [32] Three hurricanes also soaked Hawaii this year, which is rare. [32] Unusually warm water off Baja California, in Mexico, helped Rachel stay a tropical storm, the US National Hurricane Center noted. [32]

Why it matters. El Nino, a natural warming of the eastern Pacific, makes these storms more frequent, a hurricane researcher writes. [32] Southern California is usually dry at this time of year, so a few inches of rain can cause flash floods. [32]

Green banks are lenders that use public money to back clean energy projects that ordinary banks find risky. [16] In 2024 and 2025 they put $1.4bn of their own money into more than 40,000 projects. [16] Private lenders added $11bn alongside them. [16] The figures come from the first report of the US Green Bank 50, a group of 56 green banks and others, released in September. [16] The Trump administration ended a $20bn federal green bank fund last year, and a judge ruled that freeze unlawful in August. [16]

Why it matters. The money has still not been released, and the Trump administration is expected to appeal to the US Supreme Court. [16] Until then, the lenders say, they cannot take on the riskiest projects, often in poorer areas. [16]

BYD, the Chinese electric carmaker, has put France on its shortlist for a new factory, its vice-president Stella Li said at the Paris Motor Show. [26] BYD plans to open a plant in Hungary by the end of this year. [26] It also showed the Atto 8, a seven-seat SUV that it says charges from 10% to 80% in five minutes. [25] AITO, a Chinese brand backed by Huawei, will start selling in Europe in autumn 2027. [27]

Why it matters. BYD registered 13,935 cars in France in the first half of 2026, up 136% on a year earlier. [26] China agreed on Friday to 'moderate' its exports of hybrid cars to the EU, the EU's trade commissioner said. [26]

A little more than 300 glaciers have vanished from the western US since the middle of the 20th century. [20] That is the finding of a study in PNAS, the journal of the US National Academy of Sciences. [20] More than 1,450 glaciers once covered 562 square kilometres across six states. [20] Their total area has shrunk by 35%. [20] The fastest thinning, about half a metre of ice a year, is in Montana's Beartooth-Absaroka Mountains. [20]

Why it matters. The glaciers feed cold water to mountain streams in late summer, after the snow has gone, and Washington's also feed hydropower dams. [20] Most glaciers on Washington's Olympic Peninsula could be gone by 2070, an earlier study by the same team found. [20]

Scientists have turned more than a million handwritten weather readings from the Congo Basin into digital records. [19] The paper records were kept in archives in Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo. [19] The records run from 1908 to 2023, on more than 9,000 pages. [19] They show the basin's average daily temperature rose by about 0.5C between 1961 and 1990, and the number of hot days nearly doubled. [19] The study is in Earth System Dynamics, a science journal. [19]

Why it matters. The UN's climate science panel had been unable to track long-term changes in extreme heat and rain there, for lack of data. [19] Part of the archive in Congo had been damaged by fire months before a researcher visited. [19]

The UK government has set up a taskforce on extreme weather, which meets for the first time on Wednesday. [39] It brings together the Met Office, the Environment Agency, mayors, and the farming, water and insurance industries. [39] The Met Office expects a wetter autumn than usual, partly because of El Nino, which it says is likely to be the strongest in living memory. [39] About 6.3 million homes and businesses in England are at risk of flooding. [39]

Why it matters. Summer 2026 was the UK's hottest on record, and last winter England got 42% more rain than average. [39] The UK government has promised at least 10.5 billion pounds for flood protection up to 2036. [39]

Heavy rain and strong winds are forecast to sweep across Greece this week, with 50 to 150mm of rain, most of it around the island of Skiathos. [35] Crete, hit by severe floods a week earlier, may get showers later in the week. [35] Before that, temperatures in Kosanica, Montenegro, swung by 30C between day and night on 4 and 5 October. [35] That is more than double the usual October gap. [35]

Why it matters. Clear skies let heat escape fast at night, while high pressure brought strong sun by day. [35] The storms that flooded Crete swept cars and trees into the sea. [35]

Chinese firms have announced $6bn of investment in battery and electric car parts plants in Morocco, researchers write in The Conversation. [28] Cars made there avoid the EU's extra duties of up to 35% on Chinese electric cars, because Morocco has a free trade deal with the EU. [28] Renault and Stellantis plants there exported $17bn of cars and parts in 2024. [28] Only about 50,000 of the 560,000 cars Morocco made that year were electric. [28]

Why it matters. The EU's duties on Chinese electric cars last five years and face legal challenges, so the advantage may not last. [28] Morocco brought in a carbon tax this year to keep its exports in line with EU rules. [28]

Azerbaijan plans 8 gigawatts of wind and solar power by 2032, its deputy energy minister told German firms at a conference in Baku, the capital. [37] Siemens Energy offered technology for a planned route to carry green power from the Caspian Sea to Europe. [37] Enercon, a German wind turbine maker, is looking at building turbines there. [37] VNG, a German gas importer, wants a 15 to 20 year gas deal with SOCAR, Azerbaijan's state oil company. [37]

Why it matters. German firms want both gas and clean power from Azerbaijan as Europe cuts its use of Russian fuel. [37] One 7-megawatt wind turbine costs about 7 to 8 million euros, Enercon says. [37]

Energy Dome, an Italian company, has opened a factory in Piacenza, Italy, to make parts for its 'CO2 Battery', which stores power using carbon dioxide gas held in large domes. [13] The first dome made fully in-house has shipped to India, for a project with NTPC, India's state power company. [13] Others are being made for projects in Wisconsin, in the US, and in Ireland. [13] The company plans to spend about 6.5 million euros on the site and triple its output. [13]

Why it matters. Energy Dome calls it long-duration storage and says it has more than 2 gigawatt-hours of projects running or under contract. [13] Its customers include Google and Engie. [13]