Climate, in brief

US climate rules rolled back

The US EPA proposed ending its program for catching the biggest methane leaks. [3] NOAA, the US weather and oceans agency, has lost about 20% of its staff since January 2025, ahead of a strong El Nino winter. [7] Two underwater data centres are proposed in endangered whales' waters while the US government tries to loosen protections for whales. [8]

Power companies spending more

CenterPoint, a Texas power company, added $4 billion to its ten-year building plan, taking it to $70.7 billion. [9] FirstEnergy wants Ohio households to pay about $15 a month more for its grid by mid-2029. [10] A committee of British MPs says bill payers could owe £9.8 billion more to build the Sizewell C nuclear plant. [11]

A strong El Nino

El Nino, a warming of the Pacific Ocean that shifts weather around the world, has helped lift seas off southern California 15 to 22 inches above what was expected. [12] Nairobi has sent more than 4,000 workers to clear drains before El Nino rains. [13] Experts quoted by DW say El Nino is making this year's storms in the Bay of Bengal stronger. [14]

Heat-trapping gases still rising

Carbon dioxide in the air reached a record 426.8 parts per million in 2025, the UN weather agency says. [15] Countries' current climate plans would cut emissions only 6% below 2019 levels by 2035, a UN report found. [16] Greenland's ice sheet shrank for the 30th year in a row. [17]

One pressure seen across the day runs through Climate too.

• US agencies left short of peopleBuilding ↑ · seen in 3 beats→

1. 1Trump's EPA moves to scrap the US rule that made oil and gas firms find and fix their biggest methane leaks
2. 2Cyclone Arnab comes ashore in India
3. 3Heat-trapping gases hit new records
4. 4UN: climate plans cut only 6% by 2035
5. 5MPs call Sizewell C a 'terrible deal'

Donald Trump said at a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on Tuesday that he was 'terminating' the US rules that limit methane from oil and gas. [1][2]

The next test is the public comment period: 48 days from the day the plan is printed in the Federal Register, with an online public hearing 15 days in. [3]

Cyclone Arnab came ashore in Andhra Pradesh, a state on India's east coast, on Wednesday as a 'very severe' storm, with winds of 125 to 135 km/h and gusts of 150 km/h. [21]

It then sat almost still at the coast, officials said. [14] Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, the state to its north, moved nearly 100,000 people inland beforehand. [21][14]

No deaths had been reported by Wednesday morning, and the state's chief minister credited early precautions. [14] Railways had already suspended 53 trains over two days. [22]

More than 12 million people live along the storm's path, and India's weather office warned of flattened thatched houses and ruined crops. [21]

Nepal told tourists to keep out of high mountain areas, fearing heavy rain, snow and avalanches from Thursday night. [14]

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN's weather agency, said this week that the three main heat-trapping gases all reached record levels in 2025. [15]

Carbon dioxide averaged 426.8 parts per million, 53% above its level before the industrial age. [15] Methane reached 1,948 parts per billion and nitrous oxide 339.1. [15]

Carbon dioxide rose a little faster than its average for the past ten years, but more slowly than the year before. [15]

The report comes before COP31, the UN climate summit in Turkey in November. [15]

The WMO also flagged sulphur hexafluoride, a gas used in electrical equipment that traps about 24,000 times as much heat as carbon dioxide and is rising as electricity use grows. [15]

Countries' current climate plans would cut the world's greenhouse gases only 6% below 2019 levels by 2035, the UN climate body said on Tuesday. [16]

If the conditional parts of the plans are met too, the cut would be 9%. [16]

The report adds up the national plans governments send in under the 2015 Paris Agreement; this one counted 127 new plans from 154 parties. [16]

If every plan and its long-term target were met, warming would land at about 1.7C to 2.3C by 2100. [16]

It came days after another UN report said holding warming to 1.5C is now out of reach. [16]

Getting back to 1.5C would need much deeper cuts in the coming years, the report says. [16]

A committee of British MPs that checks government spending called the plan for Sizewell C, a nuclear plant in Suffolk, a 'terrible deal' for taxpayers on Wednesday. [11]

It says the cost could reach almost £48 billion. [11] Bill payers could then owe £9.8 billion more before 2040, and £12 billion more over the plant's 60 years. [11]

The UK government owns 44.9% after buying out China's state nuclear company, while private investors would add only £30 million more if costs overrun. [11]

The UK government says the plant could save the energy system £2 billion a year once it runs, which on its own timetable is between 2039 and 2043. [11]

Until then households and taxpayers carry most of the risk of the building going over budget, the MPs say. [11]

A regulated power firm is paid back for what it builds, plus a set profit, through bills, so its income grows with what it spends.

So a new substation can earn it money for decades, while paying homes to use less power at busy times earns it almost nothing.

What gets built is settled by a company, a regulator and a few outside groups, in hearings almost none of those bill payers ever attend.

Rosebank, a big oil field west of Shetland, can be approved without breaking Britain's emissions limits, government insiders told the Guardian. [23]

That is because oil sold abroad counts against the buying country's targets, not Britain's. [23]

Experts estimate the field would add about 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to Britain's own count by 2042. [23]

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth wrote to prime minister Andy Burnham on Tuesday. [24]

They say Rosebank, a bigger Heathrow, weaker electric car targets and smaller heat pump grants would add 402 million tonnes over 25 years. [24]

The decision rests with Miatta Fahnbulleh, Britain's energy secretary, who was reported last week to lean against the field while the chancellor, John Healey, pushes for it. [23]

Britain's Treasury has already counted billions of pounds of tax from Rosebank, sources say. [23]

Chris Packham, a British naturalist and broadcaster, called the UK's £24 billion plan for carbon capture a 'national embarrassment' before Wednesday's Budget. [25]

Carbon capture traps the carbon dioxide from factories or power plants and pipes it underground. [25]

Britain plans to spend more on it than the US, the EU, Norway and Japan together, campaigners say, much of it on projects developed by oil companies such as BP and Equinor. [25]

Work has begun at two sites, in north-east and north-west England. [25]

Campaigners want the money moved to measures they say cut bills faster, as the UK government reportedly plans to trim grants for heat pumps. [25]

Supporters say capture is a way to clean up industries that cannot easily stop burning fossil fuels. [25]

A tide gauge at San Pedro, by Los Angeles, read 8.02 feet on Monday, the highest since its records began in November 1923, the US National Weather Service said. [12]

San Diego's gauge reached 8.14 feet, nearly 1.5 feet above the forecast. [26] These 'king tides' are the year's highest, when the sun, moon and Earth line up. [26]

This year El Nino and a related ocean wave have already lifted local seas 15 to 22 inches above what was expected, a Newport Beach official said. [12]

Newport Beach declared a local emergency and handed out sandbags, and flood warnings ran from San Francisco to San Diego. [12][26]

King tides also flooded Florida's coast this week, including Fort Lauderdale. [26]

NOAA, the US agency that runs the national weather service, has lost more than 3,000 staff, about 20%, since January 2025, the Guardian reports. [7]

It has about 10% fewer weather forecasters and their technicians than before, and added only 40 forecasters from January to August. [7]

Trump has proposed cutting NOAA's budget by $1.6 billion, or 26%, next year. [7] Former officials warn the cuts have not yet been tested by a big disaster. [7]

El Nino is expected to bring storms, floods and landslides to the western US this winter. [7]

A NOAA spokesperson said the agency has never been better equipped to study El Nino. [7]

Also seen in Biotech and Mind & body.

Each agency now runs with fewer people or with an acting boss.

Nairobi, Kenya's capital, has sent its 'Green Army', a youth jobs program of more than 4,000 workers, to clear drains and rivers before El Nino rains. [13]

Forecasters expect this winter's El Nino to be the strongest on record, peaking in November or December. [13] Flash floods killed more than 100 people in the city last March. [13]

Kenya's government has a $385 million plan to widen waterways and fix drains and sewers by the end of 2027. [13]

The city's drains were built for about 2 million people and now serve a daytime population near 7 million, its disaster chief says. [13]

The city is preparing for up to 20,000 households to be hit, mostly in poor neighbourhoods. [13]

Greenland's ice sheet lost about 135 billion tonnes of ice in the year to August 2026, a scientist at Denmark's weather service reports. [17]

It was the 30th year in a row that it lost more ice than it gained. [17]

This came even though summer started cool and cloudy, and melting began nine days later than usual. [17]

The surface ended the year with more ice than average, but icebergs breaking off and warm sea water melting glacier fronts took more. [17]

Another method puts the loss higher, at 173 billion tonnes. [17]

Scientists usually need 30 years of data to separate human-caused warming from natural swings, and Greenland's ice has shrunk every one of those years. [17]

Greenland is today the biggest source of sea-level rise from melting ice. [17]

A tornado struck a building site in Antalya, a city on Turkey's south coast, late on Monday, killing four construction workers and injuring a fifth. [27]

The winds threw two workers' housing containers into the air and brought down a tower crane. [27]

The governor called it a very local event, with no similar weather elsewhere in the city. [27]

The same weather system flooded streets in Istanbul, 12 days after record rain there killed eight people. [27]

Istanbul's floods closed the D-100, one of its main highways, and passers-by pulled a father and daughter from a car trapped in a flooded underpass. [27]

CenterPoint Energy, a power and gas company based in Houston, Texas, added $4 billion to its ten-year spending plan on Tuesday, taking it to $70.7 billion. [9]

It expects 14 gigawatts of new demand by 2030, and has filed 17 gigawatts of large new users with Texas's grid operator. [9]

Its boss said the plans back 'sustained double-digit rate-based growth', meaning growth in the value of the grid it can charge customers for. [9]

It made $331 million in profit in the third quarter. [9]

CenterPoint says the extra demand will save customers in Texas $5 billion over ten years. [9]

It also expects its earnings per share to grow 7% to 9% a year through 2030. [9]

FirstEnergy, whose companies supply power to more than 2 million customers in Ohio, wants to raise the grid part of their bills from July 2027. [10]

Households would pay about $5 a month more in each of three years, about $15 a month more by mid-2029. [10]

Twenty-two groups have asked to take part in the case, including five environmental groups pushing for cheaper fixes such as paying homes to use less power at peak times. [10]

Ohio regulators' staff report is due by 30 November and a hearing starts in March. [10]

A utility cannot raise its rates without regulators' approval, and this case is where outside groups can bring evidence. [10]

A study for one of the groups found homes in poorer areas twice as likely to sit on old, low-voltage lines. [10]

Michigan voters decide next week on Proposal 2, which would stop utility companies' political committees giving to election campaigns. [28]

It would also bar utility executives, board members and their families from donating. [28] Campaigners gathered 560,000 signatures to put it on the ballot. [28]

Michigan has some of the highest power prices and least reliable service in the US, Grist reports. [28] Last year Michigan lawmakers took $421,000 in utility donations, a conservation group counted. [28]

Opponents, partly funded with $232,000 from utility groups, say the measure limits free speech. [28] Even if it passes, it may face court challenges. [28]

Mon Power, a West Virginia power company owned by FirstEnergy, asked US energy regulators to help it recover $145 million it lost in Winter Storm Fern last winter. [29]

It says PJM, which runs the power grid it sells into, booked gas plants in advance while Mon Power's cheaper coal plants sat near their lowest output. [29]

PJM asked the regulator on Monday to throw out the complaint as 'a fishing expedition'. [29] Mon Power has about 400,000 customers. [29]

Mon Power says that without help 'ordinary West Virginia citizens' will pay the loss. [29] PJM blames the price gap mainly on Mon Power's own downed power lines. [29]

BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, now expects the US to build 30% more grid batteries over ten years than it did six months ago. [19]

It forecasts 213.9 gigawatts in place by 2030 and 434.4 by 2036. [19]

Big tech firms' interest in batteries at and near data centres turned into firm orders this year, it says. [19]

Worldwide it expects batteries to reach about ten times today's level by 2036. [19]

A US tax credit for batteries runs to 2035, while the one for solar ends later this decade. [19]

Google said the same day it would grow a battery-backed 'virtual power plant' on PJM's grid tenfold, to more than 1 gigawatt. [19]

Renewables will make up 40.4% of US power plant capacity, what the plants could make running flat out, within a year, up from 37.7% and passing natural gas. [18]

The figures are US Energy Information Administration data reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign. [18]

In the first eight months of 2026, wind and solar made 21.1% of US electricity, and coal power fell 8.7%. [18]

Wind and solar together made 44.4% more electricity than coal this year. [18] Large batteries grew by about 17,600 megawatts in the same twelve months. [18]

DeepGreen, a US developer, has proposed two data centres on the seabed, run on tidal turbines, in Alaska's Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Maine. [8]

Cook Inlet is home to about 300 critically endangered beluga whales, and the Gulf of Maine to feeding grounds of the North Atlantic right whale, now fewer than 400. [8]

Scientists worry about constant noise and the heat the centres would shed into the water. [8] Public comments on Cook Inlet close on 2 November. [8]

Eastport, a town in Maine, has halted permits for industrial data centres, and the US energy regulator says a preliminary permit allows no building. [8]

DeepGreen's backer says it has no plan to build yet. [8]

Western Australia's government now aims for 75% renewable electricity on its main grid by 2030-31, double its old target of 40%. [20]

The state plans to stop burning coal for power by 2030. [20] It will also lend manufacturers up to A$15 million each, at low interest, to fit solar and batteries. [20]

Energy minister Amber-Jade Sanderson called the target a 'statement of intent' to draw private investment. [20]

The minister says renewables backed by storage and gas are the cheapest, most reliable mix for the state. [20]

Singapore set a new target of 4 gigawatts of solar by 2035, on top of its goal of 3 gigawatts by 2030, minister Gan Siow Huang said this week. [30]

The city-state had 2.3 gigawatts installed by October. [30] Short of land, it is testing panels on building fronts, on canopies between buildings and on the roofs of heritage buildings. [30]

Solar will still meet at most 10% of its power needs in 2050, she said. [30]

Singapore also gave conditional approval for Sembcorp, a power company, to import 1.3 gigawatts of electricity from or through Malaysia. [30]

Algeria has switched on a 300-megawatt solar plant at El Oued, its largest working solar project, its energy ministry said. [31]

It is owned by Sonelgaz, the state power and gas company. [31] It is the third big solar plant opened in Algeria this year, after two of 200 megawatts each. [31]

The country aims for 15 gigawatts of solar by 2035. [31]

Algeria's government says the plant cuts its reliance on traditional energy sources. [31] It is part of a first phase of 3.2 gigawatts spread across 21 plants. [31]

Bangladesh is renegotiating the prices it agreed years ago to pay for power from solar farms that were never built. [32]

The deals were approved under a 2010 fast-track law, mostly from offers investors made unasked. [32]

Officials say panels and building have got cheaper since, so the prices should come down to today's levels. [32]

A government committee formed in April was due to meet two more developers on 27 and 29 October. [32]

Investors warn that changing signed contracts raises the risk for anyone building power plants in the country. [32]

Fifteen German solar developers, including RWE and BayWa r.e., want the top price allowed in government auctions for ground-mounted solar raised from 59 to at least 70 euros per megawatt-hour from 2027. [33]

More hours when power prices fall below zero, and planned new grid charges, would cut their income, they say. [33]

A study for Germany's energy industry group says planned rule changes could raise the cost of solar power by up to 30%. [33]

From 2028 they want the cap to follow recent auction results plus 8%, up to 70 euros. [33]

Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said in his first speech after winning re-election that he will use the country's renewable power to attract data centres. [34]

He wants some of their space kept for Brazilians' own data, and a Brazilian AI. [34]

In September Brazil brought in Redata, a tax scheme for data centres that requires them to run on renewable or low-emission power. [34]

Whether projects come depends on grid connections and reliable supply, pv magazine notes. [34]

Leonardo, an Italian industrial group, will finish 43 megawatts of solar across 20 sites by the end of 2026, covering about 10% of its power use in Italy. [35]

Stellantis, maker of Jeep and Ram, has asked Mexico's environment ministry to approve two solar plants of 21.56 megawatts in all at its Saltillo factories. [36]

Both Mexican plants would use all their power on site and sell none to the grid. [36]

Leonardo's site at Nola, near Naples, already gets about 24% of its power from its own 9.8-megawatt plant. [35]

Ford said on Tuesday its Fathom electric pickup, due next year from $28,350, will send power to a home without a costly add-on box. [37]

Most electric cars need a home inverter costing $7,000 to $10,000 to do this. [37] The Fathom has one built in and can supply more than 10 kilowatts. [38]

Ford says the matching home charger will cost about half the $1,300 of its older one. [37]