Pope Francis has issued a renewed call for climate action, warning that “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point”, reports the Washington Post. He singled out the US for its “irresponsible” excess, in a statement “decrying the ‘weakness’ of world leaders for failing to take bold steps”, the paper continues. This latest appeal comes eight years after his environment encyclical “Laudato Si”, in which he “scolded climate change deniers” and called for an “ecological conversion” among the faithful, explains the Washington Post. Following this, the Pope issued his “apostolic extortion”, a lower-level document, which at 12 pages was more concise than the 180-page encyclical, the article notes. In his latest document, Pope Francis has criticised global decision-making bodies for being ineffective, reports BBC News, and calls out “climate deniers”. He criticises those who “deny, conceal, gloss over or relativise the issue”, and says that it was no longer possible to deny the human origins of climate change, the article adds. 

The new document, titled “Laudate Deum” or “Praise God”, also questions the UAE’s position as host of the upcoming COP28 climate summit, notes the Independent. Francis wrote “although it (UAE) has made significant investments in renewable energy sources”, the country is “known as a great exporter of fossil fuels”, the article adds. Francis calls for a “a decisive acceleration of energy transition” from fossil fuels to renewables, reports the Guardian. However, he cautions against relying on new technology such as carbon capture and storage that was “like pushing a snowball down a hill”, the paper adds. Fancis cautions that the world will face a “point of no return” without decisive action, the article continues, because “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point”. The 7,000 word document was timed for effect ahead of COP28, suggests Reuters, and states: “If we are confident in the capacity of human beings to transcend their petty interests and to think in bigger terms, we can keep hoping that COP28 will allow for a decisive acceleration of energy transition, with effective commitments subject to ongoing monitoring.” Francis notes that failure at COP28 in Dubai, “will be a great disappointment and jeopardise whatever good has been achieved thus far”, the article adds. He cautions that activist groups should not be labelled as “radicalised”, as they are “filling a space left empty by society as a whole”, Reuters notes. 

The Pope also expressed frustration with large multilateral organisations, as they have failed to make a dent in the problem, reports the New York Times. Instead, he envisioned new institutions that are more susceptible to pressure from grass-roots activists to act on climate change, it adds. Francis challenges big business and the “elites of power” in the document, the article adds, condemning them as a “corrupting, and environmentally devastating”, force. The document carries a “sharp, no holds barred tone” notes the Associated Press, adding that its footnotes had more references to UN climate reports, NASA and Francis’ own previous encyclicals than to scripture.The article quotes the document saying: “‘Praise God’ is the title of this letter. ‘For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.’” The Pope’s letter was also covered by the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, Sky News and others.

At least 14 people were killed and 102 went missing in India’s north-eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim, the Times of India reports, after a flash flood in the Teesta river caused “massive devastation, completely cutting off [the state] capital Gangtok from…the rest of the country”. According to the paper, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the flash flood was because of a “glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), a type of flood caused by the failure of a dam containing a glacial lake”, with IMD director Gopi Nath Raha quoted as saying the flood was “due to a GLOF and not a cloudburst”, based on rainfall data from different stations in the area. The flood from the melting Himalayan glacier “destroyed the Chungthang dam, a key component of the state’s largest hydroelectric project, and washed away highways, villages, and towns”, the Hindu reports. The outlet quotes a government official who did not want to be identified saying: “The distance between the lake and the Teesta 3 [power project] is very short. The Central Water Commission reported a rising column of water at 1:30 am, but it was so quick and big that little could be done by way of warning.” A story in the Hindustan Times reports that residents “had all of half an hour warning” and quotes survivors saying “we couldn’t rescue anything but ourselves.” The Dalai Lama “expressed his solidarity with the people of Sikkim in the wake of flash floods claiming at least ten lives”, the Press Trust of India reports.

Jakob Steiner, hazards and hydrology expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), is quoted by the Hindustan Times saying that the event was “another classic case of a cascading hazard chain” and “it is possible that strong permafrost degradation in the vicinity of the lake may have destabilised the dam”, resulting in even more loss in a “devastating monsoon season” in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. The paper continues Steiner’s quote: “Tragically, what we’ve seen this summer, in terms of flash floods, is likely to pale in comparison with what’s to come, unless we limit temperature rise.” Scientists had warned in 2021 that the South Lhonak lake – “the largest and fastest-growing glacial lake in the state” – would burst, Down to Earth reports, while “point[ing] out that climate change is causing an impact on Himalayan glaciers and glacial lakes”. Environmentalist Sandeep Minhas of the Himalaya Niti Abhiyan is quoted telling DeutscheWelle that “impacts of climate change-related events are intensified by infrastructure development” in the Himalayan region. Al Jazeera quotes Om Prakash, from an Indigenous farming community in the state of Himachal Pradesh, saying that changing weather patterns in the high mountains could “no longer be counted on” and that “climate change killed my family”. 

In climate and business news, the Indian Express carries a story titled: “For India Inc, climate change is the new single biggest business risk.” Nikkei Asia reports that the country’s steel exporters “are among the Asian companies expected to be hit hardest by the implementation of the first phase of Europe’s carbon border tax regime” and that “most Indian exporters are not adequately prepared…only a handful of firms have undergone emission audits for their facilities”. India is “introducing a series of measures to push its industries toward decarbonisation and is considering its own carbon trading system to mitigate the CBAM impact”, the story adds. Meanwhile, in a comment in the Hindu, member of parliament Amar Patnaik and mathematician-CEO Rajesh Kasturirangan propose “a national carbon accounting system [that]…will bring the entire nation, starting from individuals and households, under one carbon accounting framework”. Separately, the Print reports that the number of women taking free government buses in the southern state of Karnataka “almost doubled” between June and July this year, going up to 200m in August.

EU lawmakers have approved the new heads of the bloc’s climate policy, reports the Financial Times, despite one of the candidates confirming delays in the adoption of important environmental laws. European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič will take over the coordination of laws under the EU’s green deal plan, which is targeting net-zero emissions in Europe by 2050, the article states. The paper says former Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra will take on the role of new climate commissioner, after the chair of the parliament’s environment committee Pascal Canfin confirmed the appointment following a hearing held by the committee with the two candidates earlier this week. The two will still need formal approval from a majority of the full European parliament and there is a vote today that some lawmakers said is likely to pass, given the committee’s endorsement, reports Reuters. The article quotes Canfin, who said lawmakers had sought “a clear commitment to keep on delivering on the green deal”. The committee’s approval of Šefčovič and Hoekstra came only after MEPs, who were unsatisfied with what they had heard during the hearings earlier this week, answered additional questions, reports Politico. In particular, “green-minded” MEPs sought to put pressure on the candidates, demanding clarity on specific legislative files and diplomatic efforts, including setting the EU’s new climate goal for 2040, the article continues. “But as much as the lawmakers insisted that this was all about substance, they ultimately waved the candidates through despite gaining little in the way of new policy commitments,” notes Politico. Hoekstra, who was the Netherlands’ foreign minister, was questioned about his employment history and commitment to climate action during a three-hour session on Monday night, as he previously worked for oil giant Shell, reports the Guardian. He told the committee: “Fossil fuels must become history, the sooner the better,” the article notes. 

UK universities have taken tens of millions of pounds in funding from major fossil fuel companies since 2022, despite many of these institutions having pledged to divest from oil and gas, the Guardian reports. More than $40.9m in research agreements, tuition fees, scholarships, grants and consultancy fees have been pledged to 44 universities by 32 oil, coal and gas companies since 2022, it continues. The largest contributors were Shell, the Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas, and BP, who collectively accounted for more the 76% of the total awarded figure, giving £20.98m, £5.19m and £4.89m respectively, the article adds. A further 10 companies –  Sinopec, Equinor, BHP Group, Total Energies, Eni SPA, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Scottish Power, Kellas Midstream and Ithaca Energy – made up nearly 21% of the remaining contributions, the paper says. The funding was revealed following freedom of information requests submitted by DeSmog. The universities revealed to be in receipt of the most money were: Exeter, Imperial College London, Heriot-Watt, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Royal Holloway, Strathclyde, Queen Mary London and Teesside, it notes. Most of the funding spans the current academic year, with a handful of projects running for a number of years, up to as far as 2027, adds DeSmog. More than 65% of the UK’s higher education institutions have refused to make further fossil fuel investments, which could potentially involve the removal of £17.7bn from the industry, while 51 universities have yet to divest from oil and gas, the article adds.

Naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham has announced a legal challenge to changes to net-zero policy commitments that have been announced in the last month by the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, reports BBC News. Sunak is planning to delay the phase-out of new gas boilers, along with petrol and diesel cars amongst other changes [as reported on by Carbon Brief], notes the article. If the prime minister does not reverse these changes, Packman has said that he will apply to the High Court for a judicial review, it continues. The change in direction on net-zero policies was made without any public consultation, without informing parliament or the Climate Change Committee, Packham noted, reports the Press Association. The newswire quotes Packham saying the prime minister is “playing populist politics with the future of life on Earth” and adding: “Even before this spontaneous, ill-judged and – we contend – unlawful announcement, the UK government’s plans to meet its legal net-zero commitments were shambolic and destined to failure.” Packham announced the legal challenge in a video posted to social media ahead of Sunak’s speech at the Conservative party conference, reports BusinessGreen. WIthin it, Packham says he has already written to the prime minister a week ago warning that unless the government reverses the green policy delays, he would apply to the High Court and try to force it too, the article notes. Packham joins a number of environmental groups threatening to pursue legal action, including the Good Law Project – which is already involved in a separate legal claim against the government alongside ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth that alleges the net-zero strategy was insufficiently ambitious – BusinessGreen adds. Alongside the video, Packman sent a letter to Sunak outlining his challenge, which the prime minister now has 14 days to reply to – or reverse his decision – before the naturalist goes to the High Court, reports the Daily Telegraph. The story was also covered by the Daily Mail. 

Separately, Vertu Motos, one of Britain’s biggest car dealerships, has also criticised Sunak’s “confusing” net-zero policies, reports the Daily Telegraph. The company, which operates 190 forecourts under brands including Bristol Street Motors and Macklin Motors, has said that demand from retail customers has been “muted” in recent months, and the government’s “confusing messaging” risked contributing to a further dampening of car sales, the article notes. Similarly, a new report from thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has warned the UK is “in reverse gear” in the global race for green growth, reports the Press Association. A lack of “green industrial strategy” means the nation is lagging behind international competitors, such as the US and EU, in exploiting the economic opportunities presented by the net-zero transition, it notes. The IPPR found that UK public investment in the net-zero economy was “inadequate”, with commitment to invest in clean-energy technologies among the lowest in the G7 group of leading Western economies, the newswire adds.

Elsewhere, Just Stop Oil protesters halted a West End performance of Les Miserables in London, invading the stage during the song Do You Hear The People Sing?, report Sky News, the Daily Mail, BBC News, the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian. 

Global carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation may peak this year after plateauing in the first half of 2023, reports the Guardian. This is according to a new study from climate thinktank Ember (also covered by Carbon Brief) that found a surge in wind and solar power were helping to slow emissions, the article continues. The growth in renewables was so rapid over the first half of 2023 that it is close to the “incredibly fast rate” needed if the world is to hit the tripling of capacity by the end of the decade that experts believe is necessary to stay on the 1.5C pathway, the paper adds. Additionally, the paper continues, there was only a slight increase (0.2%) in emissions in the first six months of 2023 in comparison to the same period in 2022, suggesting that the world may be close to reaching peak global power sector emissions. Wind and solar’s share of global electricity rose to 14.3% over the first half of 2023, up 1.5 percentage points compared to the first half of 2022, reports Reuters. However, droughts limiting hydro generation globally prevented a fall in the energy sector’s overall carbon emissions, it adds. Hydropower output fell by some 177 terawatt hours due to droughts, the newswire notes, with China accounting for nearly 75% of this drop. There was also a fall in demand for energy in several countries, leading to a decrease in their power sector emissions, reports New Scientist. There was a 17% decline in the EU, a 12% decline in Japan and an 8.6% decline in the US, it says, and while emissions in India rose by 3.7% this was a slower rate than previously seen. Ember looked at data from 78 countries representing 92% of electricity demand, and estimated emissions for the remaining countries based on historical data, the magazine says. 

The European Union has “formally initiated” a one-year anti-subsidy investigation into electric vehicles manufactured in China, which could result in “provisional measures such as countervailing duties imposed in the next nine months”, reports Bloomberg. The state-run industry newspaper China Energy News publishes a response from the Chinese ministry of commerce, saying that the EU’s move is “solely based on subjective judgement…lacking sufficient evidence support and not in line with relevant rules of the World Trade Organization”. The Communist Party-backed People’s Daily publishes a commentary under the “Zhongyin” byline – a nom de plume for top party leadership – in which it uses the fact that “more than 60% of the world’s new energy vehicles are produced and sold in China” as an example of China’s economic dynamism. Dong Yifan, a fellow at the thinktank the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, has penned a commentary in news platform China.org advocating the importance of “continuous communication and contact between China and the EU”, through such methods as continuing to support the participation of EU enterprises in China’s “green certificates and green power”.

Meanwhile, the state news agency Xinhua reports that China’s “coal-rich province” of Shanxi extracted a record high of nearly “7.2bn cubic metres of coalbed methane” from January to August 2023. Separately, the Wall Street Journal investigates China’s pledge to cease building coal-fired power, saying that “Chinese companies have cancelled nearly 40 planned coal plants over the past two years, but the fate of about 40 other projects remains in limbo”, in some cases due to pressure from host countries. 

In other news, the state broadcaster CGTN reports that China’s flood control authorities on Tuesday “activated a level-4 emergency response against Typhoon Koinu”. The South China Morning Post says that rising ocean temperatures have led to “strong typhoons” occurring approximately “two weeks earlier on average” compared to years ago, rendering them “more likely to overlap with extreme rainfall in the summer”. Finally, China Energy News reports that domestic gas production in China “continues to maintain positive growth”, and in the coming winter the gas market will likely “remain moderate, with prices higher than in the off-season but with limited increases”.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has “gone on the attack” writes Andrew Rawnsley, chief political commentator of the Observer in a comment for the Guardian. But the “novelty is that the attack has been concentrated not on Labour, but on the record of his Conservative predecessors”, he writes, following Sunak’s speech at the Conservative party conference yesterday. In the run-up to the conference, Sunak “shredded key components of his party’s previous commitments to achieving net-zero”, along with announcing in his speech he was scrapping the northern leg of high-speed rail project HS2, says Rawnsley. Sunak has worked to focus on “wedge issues”, such as HS2 and net-zero, to create dividing lines between previous Tory governments, Labour and himself, the article continues. “But the dividing lines he has drawn attention to are the ones splitting his own party. Some of the angriest voices about the retreats on net-zero belong to green-minded Conservatives”, writes Rawnsley.

In the Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, climate-sceptic commentator Ross Clark calls for net-zero to now also be scrapped, stating “those who think they can get away with milking the taxpayer have been warned”. An editorial in the Daily Mail similarly welcomes the cancelling on HS2 in favour of ploughing money into roads, saying it had become a “parable for monstrous public sector waste”. While the editorial celebrates much of Sunak’s speech – dubbing him “energetic, inventive and likeable” – it highlights that he “devoted none of his speech to housing, public sector cuts and energy security. All are vital to restoring the nation’s fortunes”. 

Amphibians are the most vulnerable vertebrates worldwide, with 41% of species threatened with extinction, new research finds. The authors report the findings of the second Global Amphibian Assessment, which evaluates more than 8,000 species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “red list”. The “status” of amphibians in the red list is dropping worldwide, the authors warn. They find that habitat loss drove 91% of this status deterioration between 1980 and 2004. Since 2004, climate change and habitat loss have been responsible for 39% and 37% respectively, the paper adds.