Climate, in brief

Hotter seas and summers

Heat killed about 50,000 people in Europe's cities this summer. [1] The UN's weather agency says the tropical Pacific could run 3.8C above normal this winter. [7] The IUCN, a global conservation body, rates 96% of shallow coral reefs at extreme risk of collapse once warming is counted. [4]

Dear imported gas

Britain expects some of Europe's highest energy costs this winter, because it must outbid its neighbours for gas. [12] Its prime minister defended a new North Sea gas field as a way to import less. [21] In Australia, big batteries pushed gas power on the main grid to its lowest since 2000. [24]

Batteries at busy times

Google will pay Voltus, a US firm, to line up about a gigawatt of homes and businesses that cut their power use at busy times. [25] Sonnen's US arm says its home battery sales doubled, much of it for that kind of scheme. [29] Batteries cut Australia's gas power to a 26-year low. [24]

Help smaller than the damage

A UN fund set aside $20 million for Nepal, less than 1% of its flood losses. [11] More than half of the UK fire services that answered the Guardian had no wildfire kit. [18] Welsh crews say no fire engines were free across one whole region in August. [19]

3 pressures seen across the day run through Climate too.

• Dearer fuel from the Iran warHigh ↑ · seen in 6 beats→
• AI building outrunning its cashHigh ↑ · seen in 3 beats→
• Public help covering only part of the needBuilding ↑ · seen in 4 beats→

1. 1Heat killed about 50,000 people in Europe's cities this summer, a record, and scientists put two in three of the deaths down to climate change
2. 2Nearly all coral reefs rated close to collapse
3. 3El Nino may break its record this winter
4. 4UN fund sets aside $20 million for Nepal
5. 5Britain faces some of Europe's dearest energy

The full study is due in the journal Nature Health next week, and the next check is whether national health agencies, which use their own methods, find tolls close to these. [2][1]

Some in Naples could not afford air conditioning or did not switch it on because of the cost of power. [1]

The IUCN, a global conservation body that advises the United Nations, rated the world's shallow coral reefs on Thursday, the first assessment of its kind, across 127 regions. [4][5]

About 24% are already critically endangered, and that rises to 96% once the expected warming is counted. [4]

Critically endangered means an extremely high risk of collapse before 2075, when a reef can no longer keep itself going because its reef-building corals have died. [4]

The results were presented at COP17, the UN nature summit in Armenia. [6]

Reefs cover about 1% of the ocean but hold a quarter of all sea species, and up to a billion people rely on them for food, tourism or protection from storms. [6]

Only one shallow reef system has collapsed so far, in the western Galapagos, after the strong El Nino of 1982-83. [6]

Scientists run the same summer twice, once as it was and once without the warming people caused, and the extra deaths in the real one are warming's share.

But scientists can count how many more people died this summer than would have died in the same summer without the extra warming.

Everyone reading this lives in the warmer of those two worlds, the real one.

The World Meteorological Organization, the UN's weather agency, said on Wednesday that the tropical Pacific could run 3.8C above normal from November to January. [7]

An El Nino, a natural warming of that ocean, is declared at just 0.5C above normal. [7]

Its head, Celeste Saulo, said past record El Ninos reached about 3C, so this one is beyond that. [8]

NASA's sea-height satellites show it on track to be bigger than the El Nino of 1997-98. [9]

An El Nino moves rain and heat around the world, bringing drought to some places, floods to others and extra heat to large parts of the planet. [7]

New Scientist reports that coral experts fear it will bring another mass bleaching of reefs. [6]

It is the first time the fund has set money aside as a quick response to a disaster. [11]

Nepal's flood on 26 August, along its border with Tibet, killed about 1,500 people, and more than 5,000 are still missing. [10]

Nepal puts the losses at $2.69 billion, so the money is less than 1% of them. [11]

Nepal must still apply formally, and the earliest approval is at the board's December meeting, so the money may not arrive until next year. [11]

So far 119 countries have asked the fund for $2.8 billion, and up to $350 million is available in December. [11]

Also seen in Biotech, Mind & body and World.

When public help covers only part of the need, people who can afford it buy the rest themselves, like the million Britons paying for weight-loss jabs.

Britain expects to pay some of the highest energy prices in Europe this winter, because it must outbid its neighbours to import gas and power. [12]

National Gas, which runs Britain's gas pipes, struck a last-minute deal with Interconnector, the Belgian owner of a pipeline to Britain, to keep its pumps ready for a cold snap. [12][13]

Ofgem, the energy regulator, approved it, adding about 10p a month to the average gas bill. [12] Britain imports almost 60% of its gas. [13]

Gas shipped in by sea costs about three times what it did before the Middle East crisis cut Gulf supplies, and Europe ended August on course for its lowest winter gas stores in 13 years. [12]

Neso, the grid operator, says the lights will stay on but expects some tight days. [14]

Also seen in World, Finance, Space, Food and Money.

Attacks around the Gulf keep oil above $110, so airlines, truckers and farmers pay more for fuel and pass it on to households in fares, food and heating.

Storm Austen reached Britain on Friday with an amber wind warning for Cornwall and parts of Devon, and gusts of 60 to 70mph, up to 80mph on exposed coasts. [15]

The Met Office, Britain's weather service, warned of power cuts and a possible danger to life, and some schools closed. [15]

Every school in Jersey was told to shut, and parts of Brittany, in France, could see gusts near 90mph. [15]

Parts of Scotland could get up to 80mm of rain, and trains there were slowed. [16]

Storm Boelo follows on Saturday with wind warnings for Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, and gusts up to 80mph. [15]

After weeks of wet weather, more rain on soaked ground raises the risk of local floods. [15]

At least four people died in southern France after Storm Adam brought floods on Tuesday. [17]

Two women, aged 86 and 26, drowned in a cellar in the Bouches-du-Rhone region, near Marseille. [17] In Corsica a man was found dead after floodwater swept away a car. [17]

Dozens of people in Mouries and Saint-Martin-de-Crau spent the night in emergency shelters, and the region's top state official said the water rose higher than ever before. [17]

The same storm had already killed at least three people in eastern Spain, where Valencia's government approved 23.5 million euros of aid. [17]

France then put five western departments on alert for Storm Austen's winds. [17]

Andy Burnham, Britain's prime minister, will announce an AI unit to spot wildfires at the government's first wildfire summit on Friday, after the hottest summer on record. [18]

Fire crews will get 45 million pounds for protective kit made for wildfires. [18]

The Guardian found that more than half of the 29 fire services that answered its questions had none. [18]

Military planes and helicopters will help on hard-to-reach ground, and 25 million pounds will go to restoring dried-out peat bogs in England so they hold more water. [18]

In Wales, the Fire Brigades Union says crews climbed hills in unsuitable boots, and in mid-August no fire engines were free across one whole region. [19]

The Met Office found climate change made this summer's heat about 130 times more likely. [18]

A day after Britain approved the Jackdaw gas field, Prime Minister Andy Burnham wrote that he would still block new North Sea licences and reach net zero by 2050. [20]

He said Jackdaw would raise Britain's own gas output by about 6%. [21]

Researchers and campaign groups cited in The Conversation say it will meet just 2% of Britain's gas demand for ten years. [22]

Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said only she can decide on Rosebank, a much bigger oil field. [20] Donald Trump, the US president, urged Britain to drill full blast. [8]

Fahnbulleh said that if colleagues overruled her, Britain's government would lose in court. [20]

That sets up a possible clash with Britain's Treasury, which wants oil and gas money for a new energy wealth fund. [20]

It was announced in 2017 at A$2 billion, and in 2023 the cost was raised to almost A$13 billion. [23]

The project joins two mountain reservoirs with tunnels up to 27km long. [23]

Water is pumped up to the higher one when power is cheap and let back down through turbines when power is needed. It will now be finished in 2029. [23]

Once working it can produce 2,200 megawatts and store 350,000 megawatt-hours of power. [23]

Taxpayers are expected to put in more money, and Australia's government plans to announce new oversight in the coming weeks. [23]

Gas power on Australia's main grid averaged 881 megawatts from July to September, the lowest for that quarter since 2000, the Australian Energy Market Operator said on Friday. [24]

A surge in big batteries cut the need for gas. [24] Renewables supplied a record 44.3% of the grid's power, and coal's share slipped to 52.2%. [24]

Batteries are taking work from gas plants on a grid where coal still makes about half the power. [24]

In Britain, the gas network operator expects gas plants to be needed more, not less, on dark, still winter days. [12]

Google and Voltus, a US firm that pays homes and businesses to use less power at busy times, are lining up about a gigawatt of that capacity in PJM, the biggest US power market. [25][26]

It adds 1,070 megawatts to the 100 megawatts the two agreed in June. [26]

The customers will cut their use or supply battery power at peak times, under promises that run to 2040. [25]

Many small users acting together like this is called a virtual power plant. [25]

PJM expects data centres and other big users to add 30 to 34 gigawatts of demand by the early 2030s. [25]

Paying users to cut back needs no building work, and PJM has struggled to connect new power plants. [25]

Also seen in Finance and Tech.

AI firms are building faster than their businesses earn, so they lean on lenders and share buyers, and on Thursday those buyers asked a higher price.

China's National Energy Administration issued a notice backing projects that pair coal power plants with new wind and solar farms, the business outlet Yicai reports, according to Carbon Brief's daily digest. [8]

It aims to cut carbon from coal power and to waste less wind and solar power. [8]

The amount of new wind and solar is meant to match how well the upgraded coal units can turn up and down. [8]

China's electricity use rose 1.2% from a year earlier in September. [8]

Grids sometimes switch off working wind and solar farms because they cannot use the power at that moment, which is called curtailment. [8]

The notice treats coal plants that can change their output more easily as the way to let more clean power in. [8]

Scania, the Swedish truck maker, will build battery trucks at its new factory in Rugao, China, as soon as it gets a licence. [27]

Its chief executive, Christian Levin, expects electric trucks to be half of China's market by the start of 2027. [27]

Sales of electric heavy trucks in China rose almost 80% in the first half of 2026, and are on pace for more than 30% of heavy trucks sold this year. [27]

Electrek, a clean-transport news site, links the speed-up to record fuel prices from the war with Iran. [27]

Levin said China has managed to expand charging and the power grid, which he called the biggest problem in many countries, Europe included. [27]

The Rugao plant, Scania's first fully owned factory in China, can build diesel and battery trucks on the same lines. [27]

Sonnen, a German maker of home batteries, has filed for insolvency, the German business paper Handelsblatt reported. [28] About 400 staff in Wildpoldsried, Bavaria, were told on Thursday. [29]

Shell, the oil company, sold sonnen this summer to Tiven, a family investment office, after years of looking for a buyer. [28]

Many of its subsidiaries are expected to close or go through insolvency, and only one factory will keep running. [28]

Sonnen says it will keep serving its more than 150,000 customers. [28]

Its US arm reports the opposite: sales doubled and it expects to deliver more than 180 megawatt-hours of home batteries this year, much of it for virtual power plants. [29]

Iraq's cabinet has removed customs duties on imported solar systems, the Iraqi News Agency reports. [30]

The duty was as high as 33% until February, when it was cut to 5% on panels, cables, inverters and batteries. [30]

The electricity ministry has also drafted 40 rules that would let people connect home solar to the national grid with smart meters. [30] Those rules still need the cabinet's approval. [30]

It makes solar cheaper to buy in a country whose solar industry is just starting: Iraq's first panel production line opened in Karbala in July. [30]

A 300-megawatt solar project is also being built there. [30]

The winner will build and run it and sell the power to the state-owned Rwanda Energy Group under a long contract. [31] First bids are due on 12 November. [31]

Rwanda has about 47.5 megawatts of solar working today, by one industry count. [31]

The plant would be about four times all the solar Rwanda has now. [31]

Africa has few floating solar plants, and the biggest planned is 600 megawatts on Lake Kariba, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. [31]

Koc Holding, a sponsor of COP31, owns Tupras, Turkey's largest oil refiner, Climate Home News reports, according to Carbon Brief's digest. [8]

COP31 is the UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, in November. [22]

Tupras plans to keep its refineries running at full power, and both firms have already lowered their 2030 climate targets to levels they have nearly reached. [8]

The choice has revived a long row over giving fossil fuel firms a role at climate summits. [8]

COP31 is the yearly UN meeting where governments bargain over cutting the gases that warm the planet. [8]

Climate Home says its sponsors should be checked for whether their climate promises are real. [8]

Kenya's government and a group of donors signed off a $160 million programme to protect 173,000 square kilometres of nature, Reuters reports, according to Carbon Brief's digest. [8]

Named Thamani Asili, Swahili for the value of nature, it covers wildlife areas from the Great Rift Valley to the Maasai Mara. [8]

About $80 million from dozens of donors will be joined with government money over ten years. [8] The money is tied to Kenya's government making agreed changes to its policies. [8]

It comes during COP17, the UN nature summit in Armenia, where nearly 200 countries must agree how to catch up on 2030 nature targets that are badly off track. [42]

Chery, a Chinese carmaker, announced a 1.44-megawatt charger that adds 500km of range in five minutes. [32]

It fills a battery from 10% to 97% in 6 minutes 50 seconds, 23 seconds behind the record held by CATL, a Chinese battery maker. [32]

BYD's luxury brand Denza opens orders on 26 October for an electric N8 SUV with a claimed range of 1,003km on China's official test. [33]

BYD's charging takes it from 10% to 70% in five minutes. [33]

Firms in China now compete over seconds of charging time, not minutes, Electrek reports. [32]

Volkswagen will launch a smaller electric car in 2027, starting at about 20,000 euros. [34] Expected to be called the ID.

Up, it is based on the ID. EVERY1 concept shown in March. [34]

It will sit below the ID. Polo, whose basic version starts at 24,995 euros. [34]

Thomas Schafer, head of the Volkswagen brand, called it the last piece of the puzzle. [34]

The new small cars are Volkswagen's answer to Chinese carmakers such as BYD. [34]

Schafer said the brand aims to offer the widest choice of cars in the part of the market where most are sold. [34]

Canada agreed with China this year to let in up to 49,000 Chinese electric cars at a 6.1% tariff, a tax on imports. [35]

Kia, the South Korean carmaker, says its EV3, at 39,744 Canadian dollars, was the cheapest electric car in Canada when it launched in August. [35]

Elias El-Achhab, Kia Canada's chief operating officer, said he sees the deal as an opportunity for Kia, not a threat. [35]

He says about 90% of people who buy an electric car stick with one. [35]

Orders for the EV3 and EV5 are already backed up, Kia says. [35] Its bet is that features as well as price will win buyers when the Chinese cars arrive. [35]

Aiko Solar, a Chinese maker of solar cells, will convert its Tianjin factory from an older cell design called PERC to 6 gigawatts a year of its own back-contact cells. [36]

In a back-contact cell all the metal wiring sits on the back, so more of the front catches light. [36]

The upgrade will cost 1.15 billion yuan, about $172 million, and reuses the existing building. [36]

Aiko says the switch follows where the solar industry is heading, towards cells that turn more sunlight into power. [36]

Its filing says the money will come from its own funds, bank loans and partners in the industry. [36]

PV Hardware USA, which makes trackers that turn solar panels to follow the sun, is enlarging its Houston factory by about 3,180 square metres, or 42%. [37]

It will make 35% more tracker parts already put together, moving work from building sites into the factory. [37]

The company opened its first Houston plant in May 2024 with a $30 million investment, and added a second tracker factory in September 2025. [37]

Its chief executive, Alfonso Queipo, said customers were asking the company to do more in the US. [37]

Putting parts together indoors gives more control over quality than doing it in the open on a solar site, he said. [37]

Redwood Materials, a US battery recycler founded by JB Straubel, a Tesla co-founder, is widening its deal with Rivian, an electric carmaker. [38]

Redwood will collect and recycle the battery scrap from Rivian's factory in Normal, Illinois. [38]

Retired Rivian batteries will first store power for buildings and grids, and later about 99% of their nickel, cobalt, copper and lithium will be recovered. [38]

Rivian signed up for 10 megawatt-hours of such storage in April. [38]

Recycled scrap goes back into making batteries at a fraction of the cost of newly mined material, Electrek reports. [38]

Straubel says each returned battery pack can also become storage for the grid. [38]