The state of California is suing several of the world’s biggest oil companies, claiming their actions have caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and that they deceived the public by downplaying the risks posed by fossil fuels, reports the New York Times. The newspaper describes the civil case, which was filed in San Francisco on Friday, as “the latest and most significant lawsuit to target oil, gas and coal companies over their role in causing climate change”. The lawsuit, which targets Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, seeks “creation of an abatement fund to pay for the future damages caused by climate related disasters in the state”, the newspaper says, adding that “the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group based in Washington, is also listed as a defendant”. The outlet quotes California governor Gavin Newsom, who said: “These folks had this information and lied to us, and we could have staved off some of the most significant consequences…It’s shameful. It sickens you to your core.” The Guardian reports: “The 135-page complaint argues that the companies have known since at least the 1960s that the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet and change the climate, but they downplayed the looming threat in public statements and marketing.” The Hill quotes California attorney general Rob Bonta, who said: “From extreme heat to drought and water shortages, the climate crisis they have caused is undeniable. It is time [the oil companies] pay to abate the harm they have caused. We will meet the moment and fight tirelessly on behalf of all Californians, in particular those who live in environmental justice communities.” The potential size of the abatement fund Bonta is pursuing “remains to be determined”, notes the Los Angeles Times. Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, Forbes, CNN, Reuters and DeSmog all have the story. 

Meanwhile, Newsom has also said that he will sign a landmark climate bill that passed the state’s legislature last week requiring major companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, the New York Times reports. The newspaper explains that the new law “will require about 5,000 companies to report the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that is directly emitted by their operations and also the amount of indirect emissions from things like employee travel, waste disposal and supply chains”. At an event as part of New York’s Climate Week, Newsome said: “Would I cede that leadership by having a response that is anything but, Of course I will sign that bill?…No, I will not.” He added that his signature came with “a modest caveat” that his office wanted “some cleanup on some little language” in the legislation, the newspaper says, but he did not clarify the changes that he wished to make. Reuters also has the story.

With world leaders gathering in the city for the UN’s general assembly this week, thousands of climate campaigners filled the streets of New York on Sunday, urging President Joe Biden to stop issuing approvals for new fossil fuel projects, reports the Financial Times on its frontpage. It continues: “The demonstration, supported by more than 700 global climate organisations that were also behind related protests in a host of other countries, comes ahead of an inaugural one-day ‘climate ambition summit’ held by the UN on Wednesday, separate to the main talks. While Biden will travel to New York to address the UN assembly on Tuesday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday the president was not scheduled to attend the climate-specific UN summit. However, the president would use his visit to New York to push ‘US interests and values’ on issues ranging from climate change to global support for Ukraine, Sullivan said.” The march in New York kicked off “a broader week of climate action”, the FT notes, “as business executives, politicians and activists all descend on the city for a range of conferences and summits” as part of Climate Week. Organisers estimated 75,000 people took part in Sunday’s “March to End Fossil Fuels”, says the Associated Press, including actors Susan Sarandon, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Kyra Sedgewick and Kevin Bacon. The protest, which was “headlined” by Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, included demands to “an end to the approval of new oil and gas projects, a phasing out of fossil fuel drilling on public lands, the declaration of a federal climate emergency and support for workers as polluting industries are phased out”, the Guardian notes. The Hill, Independent, Axios and Reuters all report on the New York march.

Elsewhere in the world, BBC News reports that hundreds of climate protestors marched in Edinburgh on Sunday and Reuters reports that protestors sprayed orange and yellow paint on the columns of Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate (see below). On Saturday, Dutch police used water cannons to clear several hundred people blocking a major highway in The Hague, Reuters reports. On Friday, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was charged with disobeying a police order following an earlier conviction for failing to leave a protest, Reuters reports. It adds: “Straight after the verdict, Thunberg and other activists from the environmental group Reclaim the Future blocked the road for oil trucks in Malmo harbour and were again forcibly removed by police.” BBC News also has the story.

In other protest news, the Daily Mail reports that activist group Just Stop Oil is “plotting to lobby the Labour party to turn the eco-group’s demands into legislation”. Quoting a “leaked document”, the outlet says “that activists will stand in local elections or general elections ‘to put pressure on Labour’ to fulfil its pledge to halt new licences for North Sea oil and gas drilling”. The Daily Telegraph reports on “leaked emails” that show the Just Stop Oil is “recruiting more than 500 university students to be arrested during a huge wave of new protests”. The Daily Mail says that education secretary Gillian Keegan has written to UK universities to “strongly encourage” them to “ensure that students are aware of the consequences that engaging in any criminal activity could have for their futures”. Finally, in an interview with the Sunday Times, TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham says that Just Stop Oil “have got a bit fixated on these slow marches…Why don’t they get a van, paint it orange, and go round feeding the homeless instead?” And the Financial Times reviews Packham’s new TV programme, which airs later this week, in which he “asks whether illegal acts of civil disobedience are justified in the face of the ever-worsening environmental crisis”.

In a frontpage story, the Times reports that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak is ready to phase out petrol and diesel cars “on a strict timeframe despite pressure from Conservative MPs to scale down net-zero plans”. The newspaper continues: “A forced transition to electric cars is due to be set out within weeks as the prime minister accepts that changing course would be damaging to industry. Ministers are understood to have promised BMW that they would not relax targets as part of negotiations to secure a £600m investment to build electric Minis in Oxford rather than China.” The outlet reports that ministers are “sticking by” both a 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars and “tough interim targets for electric vehicles” (EVs), adding: “Officials hope that the rules, which will require most new cars to be electric within about five years, will also spur a rapid expansion of the charging point network as companies rush to meet demand, addressing the ‘range anxiety’ that deters consumers.” An editorial in the same edition of the newspaper warns that “prime minister needs to speed up the rollout of EV infrastructure”. It says: “As things stand, the UK’s charging network is simply not up to the job of supporting a mass defection from internal combustion to electric in a mere seven years.“ The Independent also picks up the story, while the Daily Mail reports that short-lived UK prime minister Liz Truss will make a speech at the Institute for Government thinktank today in which she will say “we should – as many other western countries are already doing – delay implementing net-zero commitments, such as the ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030”. She will also urge the government to abolish the windfall tax on oil-and-gas firms, says BBC News. The outlet adds that, responding to her speech, Liberal Democrats deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Liz Truss giving a speech on economic growth is like an arsonist giving a talk on fire safety.” An editorial in the Daily Mail says that “Truss’s brief period in Downing Street might have ended in ignominy”, but “her scepticism about green targets, though, remains eminently sensible”.

In other motoring news, BBC News reports that the UK is “facing a dilemma” on whether it should “fight the rising imports of Chinese electric cars with big new tariffs” or “allow them to continue” as “keeping open to the imports in would make it easier for the UK to hit its goal of no new petrol and diesel cars by 2030”. The Financial Times Moral Money newsletter says that the uptake of EVs “faces major obstacles, despite rosy projections”. The Daily Telegraph reports that Volkswagen “could scrap its best-selling Polo before the end of the decade as the German car giant goes electric”. And it also reports that the new chief of carmaker Ineos Automotive says the firm will continue making petrol and diesel-burning motors into the next decade despite the global drive to net-zero. In the US, Politico reports that an expanded strike by auto workers could “disrupt” the rollout of EVs.

In other UK news, the Times reports that ministers “are considering delaying a 2026 ban on the installation of oil-fired boilers after a backlash from Tory MPs”. The newspaper explains that “about 1.7m off-grid houses in rural communities would be affected by the ban, which is part of the government’s plan to hit net-zero emissions by 2050. Under the proposals, homeowners would no longer be able to install oil-fired boilers and would have to install more expensive heat pumps instead”. However, the newspaper says it “now understands the government is looking at revising the 2026 date altogether”, with a government source saying that ministers wanted to take a “pragmatic” approach to reaching net-zero. And the Daily Mail’s political editor Glen Owen looks at whether the government will “scrap the boiler ban” in Sunak’s net-zero review.

The “Beijing Declaration” was launched on Sunday at the closing of the World Geothermal Congress, writes state news agency Xinhua, which proposes “principles and recommendations for the sustainable development of the global geothermal industry”. The congress also established the first set of global standards for geothermal energy. In a separate article, the outlet reports that Chinese vice premier Zhang Guoqin said at the Congress that China is set to “establish partnerships for clean energy cooperation and accelerate the global transition towards green energy” in response to climate change and ensure energy security.

Meanwhile, the EU’s decision to initiate an investigation into Chinese new-energy vehicles (NEVs, mostly electric vehicles) has raised protests from the Chinese chamber of commerce in the EU that Chinese EV manufacturers’ industrial edge “isn’t a product of what the commission side called ‘huge state subsidies”, but a result of concerted effort in “pushing the boundaries of innovation”. The Chinese energy website IN-EN.cn republishes a blog post written by secretary-general Cui Dongshu of the China association of automobile manufacturers saying that “China’s new energy subsidies were completely phased out by the end of 2022”. Bloomberg writes that the probe may eventually lead to “import tariffs on Chinese vehicles, drawing sharp rebuke from Beijing”, such as “retaliating by cutting access to minerals”. Hong-Kong based South China Morning Post says that, according to research by the University of Exeter, car markets in Europe, China and the US could see “battery-powered EVs sport lower price tags than traditional petrol cars by 2024-26”. China’s state-supporting Global Times publishes an editorial saying that “keeping the EV industry in a protective greenhouse will never lead to its growth and strength…Chinese EVs serve as a catalyst and motivation for the European EV industry to strive for innovation.”

In other news, China’s solar power generation in August “increased by 13.9%, with a growth rate 7.5 percentage points higher than in July”, reports energy news outlet IN-EN.com. Another industry news site, China Energy Net, states that China imported “310m tons of coal in the first eight months in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 82%”. Semafor has published an article saying that, although Chinese local authorities “must now meet environmental targets, they still face pressure to develop cities by upgrading infrastructure and bolstering economic growth”.

Satellite data shows that the sea ice surrounding Antarctica is “well below any previous recorded winter level”, BBC News reports, which describes the situation as “a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming”. Walter Meier, who monitors sea ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, tells the outlet that “it’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing”. The outlet explains that “an unstable Antarctica could have far-reaching consequences”, adding: “Antarctica’s huge ice expanse regulates the planet’s temperature, as the white surface reflects the Sun’s energy back into the atmosphere and also cools the water beneath and near it. Without its ice cooling the planet, Antarctica could transform from Earth’s refrigerator to a radiator, experts say. The ice that floats on the Antarctic Ocean’s surface now measures less than 17m km2 – that is 1.5m km2 of sea ice less than the September average, and well below previous winter record lows. That’s an area of missing ice about five times the size of the British Isles.” Dr Meier tells BBC News that he is not optimistic that the sea ice will recover to a significant degree. The outlet adds: “Scientists are still trying to identify all the factors that led to this year’s low sea-ice – but studying trends in Antarctica has historically been challenging. In a year when several global heat and ocean temperature records have broken, some scientists insist the low sea ice is the measure to pay attention to.” The Daily Telegraph and Times cover the story.

Elsewhere, Axios reports on the “month of sweltering conditions [that] drove global ocean and air temperatures to their hottest August in at least 174 years of record-keeping”. Axios also reports on how El Niño is “a big part of the reason” why 2023 “is on track to be the hottest year on record, marred by climate-related disasters all over the globe”. The outlet also has an interactive on El Niño’s global impacts. 

Meanwhile, there is continued coverage of the devastating floods in Libya. In the Conversation, Tim Woollings – professor in physical climate science at the University of Oxford – explains how “blocking” weather patterns “have triggered more extreme heatwaves and floods across Europe”. He notes the role that a recent block played in the flooding, with colder air either side of the block helping to “anchor intense stationary cyclones”. He explains: “This resulted in huge amounts of rain falling across the Mediterranean, and hence floods: in Spain on one side of the [block], and in Greece and Libya on the other. The latter were particularly affected as Storm Daniel…intensified and developed signs of a ‘medicane’, or Mediterranean hurricane.” The New York Times reports that “dire warnings about Libya dams went unheeded”, while a comment article in the newspaper asks whether “the disaster in Libya coming soon to an ageing dam near you?”. Reuters reports that UN aid chief Martin Griffiths has warned that Libya needs equipment to find trapped people as well as primary health care to prevent a cholera outbreak among survivors. Sky News looks at how the “injustice of climate change set the stage for disaster”, and the Observer speaks to Libyan reporters on the “horrifying, harrowing” aftermath of floods. Finally, presenter and motoring journalist Jeremy Clarkson writes in his column in the Sun that “a giant exodus” from Libya after the floods means “we are starting to see an effect of global warming that really will make our lives extremely different”. The “conveyor belt of human misery shows no sign of stopping”, he says: “Soon then, that trickle of boats crossing the English Channel is going to turn into a flood. And they’ll be filled not with economic migrants. But climate migrants. And I’m afraid that [UK home secretary] Suella Braverman can stand on the white cliffs of Dover, trying to turn them all back, but not since King Canute will anyone have done anything quite so futile.”

Activists from the German climate protest group Last Generation spray-painted Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate on Sunday, calling for the phasing-out of fossil fuels and more action on climate change, reports the Daily Telegraph. The Associated Press says that the activists used fire extinguishers filled with paint to spray the gate’s six columns. The newswire outlines the group’s demands, which include getting Germany to stop using all fossil fuels by 2030 and imposing a general speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour on highways. Police detained 14 people suspected of criminal damage, reports Deutsche Welle. Reuters also covered the story. The German tabloid Bild calls the group’s actions “acts of vandalism” and quotes a representative of the Free Democrats Party: “The so-called Last Generation is once again demonstrating its criminal side…This does absolutely nothing to help climate protection”. German justice minister Marco Buschmann “expressed similar sentiments”, notes Bild. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, around 250,000 people took part in the 13th global climate strike in 250 locations across Germany led by Fridays for Future, which was initiated by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg five years ago, reports Der Spiegel. The activists demanded the implementation of the climate funding outlined in the coalition agreement, a tightening of the country’s climate action law, increased investments in public transportation and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, explains the newspaper. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports that the demonstrators held up signs with slogans such as: “We should leave our planet livable for our grandchildren.” Church representatives also supported the protests, adds the newspaper. The current climate action law aims to reduce emissions by 65% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, but, according to the German Environment Agency, the current reduction is around 41%, notes FAZ. Clean Energy Wire also covers a story.

Oil companies have been granted licences by the government that it hopes will enable them to store up to 10% of the UK’s carbon emissions in old oil and gas fields beneath the seabed, reports the Guardian. It continues: “The government awarded more than 20 North Sea licences covering an area the size of Yorkshire to 14 companies that plan to store carbon dioxide trapped from heavy industry in depleted oil and gas fields. The companies include the oil supermajor Shell, Italy’s state-owned oil company ENI, and Harbour Energy, the largest independent oil and gas company operating in the UK’s North Sea basin. The industry’s government-backed regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), claims the companies could help store up to 30m tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030, or approximately 10% of UK annual emissions.” 

Meanwhile, BBC News reports that a “major” UK leak of methane has been spotted from space “for the first time”. The outlet says the leak “occurred over a three-month period at a gas main operated by Wales and West Utilities” and “the amount leaked could have powered 7,500 homes for a year”.

Writing in the Sun on Sunday, Claire Coutinho – the UK’s newly installed secretary of state for energy security and net-zero – talks up the government’s “global leadership on climate finance and clean technology”, but adds that the move to net-zero should not mean “hard-working families [are] forced to change their lives or have extra financial burdens put on them”. Coutinho writes that “moving to cleaner, home-grown forms of energy – such as nuclear, wind and solar – and ending our reliance on importing foreign fossil fuels, we will stop tyrants like Russia’s Vladimir Putin holding us to ransom”. However, she adds: “Despite the huge progress this government has made, we in the UK only account for 1% of global emissions.” [The 1% figure overlooks the UK’s historical responsibility for carbon emissions.] Coutinho says “you can’t punish people to reach net-zero – you have to take people with you”, adding: “It’s no good just saying you’ll shut down the British oil and gas industry, killing tens of thousands of jobs across the country and making us all poorer.” The article also talks up the potential benefits of nuclear fusion. The newspaper runs a news story on the back of Coutinho’s piece, while an accompanying editorial says Coutinho’s comments are “reassuring”. It adds: “Going green is the right thing to do – but it must not be done on the backs of hardworking families.” The Independent reports on Coutinho’s article.

Meanwhile, an editorial in the Daily Telegraph comments on Rishi Sunak’s reported “audit” of net-zero policies and urges the prime minister to “loosen his self-imposed restraints”. It says: “The government has already indicated that the 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars is here to stay, alongside shorter term targets for electric cars. However, there is surely room to scrap the imposition of heat pumps on Britain’s households, or anti-car ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’.” An editorial in the Mail on Sunday says “of course the Tories cannot abandon attempts to control emissions”. But, it adds, “it is a welcome sign they are increasingly ready to keep policies in proportion and to consider their effects on people trying to make a living and to heat their homes amid inflation and economic difficulty”.

In other UK comment, Daily Telegraph world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes that the EU’s green plan is “something between a mirage and almighty mess”. He says: “The EU cannot respond to the vast incentives of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act because it has no government, no treasury, no taxing-raising powers beyond a cut of VAT, no licence to raise serious debt, and therefore no real money. It cannot overwhelm the net-zero backlash with buckets of investment stimulus.”

Kemi Badenoch, secretary of state for business and trade, writes in the Daily Telegraph that the UK government’s £500m package of support for Tata Steel’s Port Talbot steelworks means “producers can keep buying British as carbon emissions fall rapidly”. The funding will help the company switch from blast furnaces to less polluting electric arc furnaces. Badenoch says: The transition to sustainable steelmaking at Port Talbot is also expected to reduce the UK’s entire business and industry carbon emissions by 7%, Wales’s overall emissions by 22% and the Port Talbot site’s emissions by 85%. One of the least difficult ways to cut our carbon emissions at a stroke.” 

An editorial in the Daily Mail offers “two cheers” for UK prime minister Rishi Sunak for “for putting together a support package for Tata Steel “that will help it transition to greener, more efficient production methods”. Daily Mail city editor Alex Brummer says that the support “will raise hackles among free marketeers and climate sceptics alike”, but “Britain will soon reap the dividends”.

Elsewhere, the Financial Times has an interview with UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt, in which he says that, despite the Tata Steel package, the UK “won’t pursue the Inflation Reduction Act subsidy bowl approach to economic policy”. He adds: “If you are asking if we are going to have big pots of subsidies for all of those five sectors [technology, the creative industries, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and the green economy], that’s not how I would interpret today’s announcement…Where there’s a strategic opportunity to progress, we will take it.”

Food systems contributed towards almost one-third of the European Union’s “ecological footprint” over 2004-14, new research finds. The authors use an “ecological footprint-extended multi-regional input–output approach” to investigate the resource dependence and carbon emissions of the EU’s food systems over 2004-14. They find that food systems used half of the EU’s biocapacity over this time. “Despite a reduction in both total ecological footprint and food ecological footprint over the study period, EU residents demand more from nature than the region’s ecosystems can regenerate”, the authors warn.