The Independent reports that forecasters say Sicily and Sardinia could see temperatures rise to 49C this week amid the so-called “Cerberus heatwave” gripping southern Europe. It says an area of high pressure has been making its way across the region, hitting Italy particularly hard. According to the Daily Mail, the European Space Agency has said that Sicily and Sardinia could hit “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe”. It notes that the “next torturous bout of extreme heat” will be named “Charon” which, like Cerberus, is the name of one of the guardians of the underworld in Greek mythology. BBC News notes that, as it stands, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe was 48.8C in Sicily in August 2021. Fifteen Italian cities, including major tourist destinations such as Rome and Florence, were covered by a “red alert” from the country’s health ministry that said people should avoid exposure to the sun between 11am and 6pm, according to Politico. Similar warnings were issued in Cyprus, Sky News reports. Euronews says that, in Athens, Greek authorities temporarily closed the Acropolis on Friday as temperatures were set to reach 40C and some tourists experienced “fainting spells”. Despite the heatwave in Spain, Bloomberg reports that a “climate-change denial party” – Vox – is likely to have a key role in the next government as the nation gears up for a national election. It says that the Socialist government’s efforts to clamp down on water use in dry regions has been seized on by right-leaning parties who claim they are victimising farmers. Agence France-Press says the “brutal heatwave” is gripping swathes of the northern hemisphere, where “record temperatures [that were] expected this weekend [were] a stark illustration of the dangers of a warming climate”. It points to extreme heat across several European countries – including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland – as well as parts of the US, China, Japan and North Africa. The Independent also has a live blog of global heatwaves news, and the “heat storm” facing Europe appears on an array of newspaper front pages including the Guardian, the i, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph in the UK. Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans has a comprehensive Twitter thread capturing newspaper and magazine front pages on extreme weather around the world in recent days.

A piece in the Observer focuses on UK tourists who are reconsidering holidays in Europe amid the sweltering heart. The Independent considers how likely it is that record-breaking heat will strike the UK in the coming days, citing the Met Office, which says there is “no forecast signal” now for temperatures to reach as high as 40C – as they did last year. The Guardian notes that a recently published Nature Medicine study concluded that more than 60,000 people died because of last year’s summer heatwaves across Europe, with high death rates in Greece, Italy and Spain. In an analysis piece for the Observer, science editor Robin McKie reflects on the recent extreme heat. “The world has just gone through a remarkable experience. It endured the hottest week ever recorded between 3-10 July this year. And meteorologists say there is more to come – a lot more,” he writes.

MailOnline covers new research that finds countries in northern Europe are unprepared for extreme heat as their buildings are designed to keep heat in. As a result, it says people may need to work earlier in the day to avoid “uncomfortable” temperatures driven by climate change. The Press Association also reports on the University of Oxford study, which also concludes that buildings in these countries should be adapted to extreme heat without relying on air conditioning, due to its high energy demand. The authors of the paper explain their findings in a piece for the Conversation. Finally, in an interview with EurActiv, Albanian agriculture minister Frida Krifca, says climate change is the biggest threat facing the nation’s farmers.

In the US, Reuters reports that the National Weather Service warned of extreme heat for nearly a quarter of the US population – more than 80 million people – while at the same time New England “braced” for more of the downpours that had already claimed the lives of four people due to flooding. It notes that temperatures of over 115F (46C) are forecast for areas of southern California’s high desert, along with Arizona and Nevada. Many outlets, including Scientific American, published articles anticipating that Death Valley, California, could reach 130F (54.4C) over the weekend, which would set a record for the hottest temperature ever reliably measured on Earth. In the event, as the Associated Press reports, temperatures on Sunday reached 128F (53.3C) on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek, leaving the record unbroken. 

The Guardian reports that the city of Phoenix, Arizona, is “on track to break a grim milestone”, with an 18-day stretch of temperatures above 110F (43.3C) expected by Tuesday. People have been scalded by the water coming out of their garden hoses and seared by burning-hot pavements in the city, according to the Washington Post.

Le Monde reports that nearly 10 million hectares have been burned across Canada as 571 fires continue to rage, with the expectation that more will come as the summer continues. The Financial Times has a piece titled: “Extreme wildfires are here to stay. Can human beings really fight them?”. The Guardian has an article about Chris Gloninger, a weather forecaster who “wove the reality of global heating into his forecasts in the conservative heartland of Iowa” and, as a consequence, ended up “receiving death threats and exiting the state”. Axios says that initial analysis from NGO Climate Central shows that “in some areas affected by this heatwave, climate change has likely made record-breaking temperatures at least five times more likely than in a world without added amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases”. 

The New York Times asks if the $1.1bn New York state has available to protect people against flooding is sufficient for the challenges ahead. A piece in the Seattle Times says the flooding in Vermont is a sign of the climate-adaptation challenge facing the US. It adds that “the most flood-prone parts of the country” such as New Orleans and Miami “could easily consume the government’s entire budget for climate resilience, without solving the problem for any of them”. Meanwhile, Axios reports that the US federal government’s disaster relief fund is “on pace to run out of money” in late August, “at the height of both the hurricane and wildfire seasons”, because so much has already been spent on disasters. Reuters says “rising temperatures in Florida’s waters due to climate change have sparked an extreme stressor for coral reefs causing bleaching”. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that insurance companies in Florida are not offering coverage to many in the state due to the rising costs of covering damage tied to floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other climate-related disasters.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the heatwaves stretching across much of the globe are straining power grids and shutting businesses that cannot keep their workers cool. It notes that “researchers studying the impact of recent heatwaves found they can cut economic growth”. The Hill reports that heatwaves killed more than 400 US workers between 2011 and 2021, citing figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and says “as climate change is expected to worsen, so too may these impacts”. 

Meanwhile, further south the Guardian reports that more than half of Uruguay’s 3.5 million citizens are without access to tap water fit for drinking due to an ongoing drought “and experts say the situation could continue for months”. In South Korea, Reuters reports that the death toll from days of torrential rain grew to 39, “including a dozen people found dead in a submerged underpass”. The article states that “the government last year vowed to take steps to better cope with climate change-induced disasters after the heaviest downpours in 115 years pounded Seoul”.

In what it calls an “exclusive” story, the Daily Express says it “infiltrated” Just Stop Oil to learn about the climate activist group’s plans to  “paralyse” London during this morning’s rush-hour. It says the “eco zealots” want to force what they call “the murderous government” to scrap all new domestic oil and gas licensing. The newspaper says Just Stop Oil protesters will be encouraged to disrupt crucial road networks until Saturday, but will be met with “special measures” from the Met Police and “beefed up anti-protest laws” put in place by the UK government. The story made it onto the front page of the newspaper’s Saturday edition. Just Stop Oil demonstrated at events over the weekend, including the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, where the Guardian reports two protesters disrupted the opening night by running on stage. Meanwhile, three more Just Stop Oil activists interrupted a live recording of the Channel 4 programme The Last Leg – running on stage and handing the hosts their orange-branded Hi Vis vests, according to MailOnline. Another set of five environmental activists have been arrested after staging a day of protests at the Ineos oil refinery at Grangemouth, according to the Independent.

In a “Mail On Sunday exclusive”, the newspaper reports on internal correspondence between members of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion that says Jess Morden – Labour leader Keir Starmer’s parliamentary private secretary – offered them an opportunity to “come in and chat”. It says that, according to the activists, Morden was “trying to sell [them] on how Labour is still driven by” environmental issues “despite Starmer backtracking”. In response, the Daily Telegraph reports that Starmer called the story “nonsense” and condemned the climate protesters as “arrogant”. Nevertheless, the story prompted home secretary Suella Braverman to issue a letter demanding that the opposition leader immediately sack Morden, as well as “all your other frontbenchers” who “have expressed sympathy with JSO or Extinction Rebellion”, according to the Daily Express. She specifically named both shadow net-zero minister Ed Miliband and shadow climate change minister Kerry McCarthy as people who Starmer should dismiss. Meanwhile, the Independent reports that the Green New Deal Rising group – which last week disrupted a major speech by Starmer – has vowed to stage weekly protests outside Labour offices “unless he commits to new green policies as they renewed accusations that Labour has ‘U-turned’ on environmental pledges”.

Separately, the Daily Telegraph quotes Roc Sandford, an “aristocratic millionaire hermit” and Extinction Rebellion activist, who takes aim at large NGOS in the UK – specifically the RSPB and the National Trust – and says they should be doing more to address climate change. In Germany, Euronews reports that activists with the group Last Generation have been disrupting flights and even glueing themselves to a runway at Hamburg airport to prevent flights taking off. Finally, another Mail on Sunday story claims to reveal the identity of the protester who briefly interrupted former UK chancellor George Osbourne’s wedding day, by throwing orange confetti. (The woman was thought by the press to be a member of Just Stop Oil, although the group denied this.) The newspaper says Shelagh Day is “a well-known campaigner in Bruton, Somerset, where she and Osborne are both residents”.

More than 100 of the UK’s biggest energy companies are expected to tell Rishi Sunak this week not to back down from his government’s green agenda, according to the Observer. Their warning follows a report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that points out what the newspaper calls the “catastrophic effects on the economy of continued overreliance on gas”. According to the article, the energy sector is “becoming so alarmed at what it sees as the Sunak government’s mixed messages on switching to more renewable energy” that UK energy companies are “ready to go public” with a letter to Downing Street over the next few days. This also comes as new calculations from analysts at Energy Flux reveal that the EU, the UK, Norway, Ukraine and Turkey collectively spent $1.12tn shoring up their gas supplies over the past two and a half years – nearly as much as the $1.35tn they spent in the preceding decade to 2020, City AM reports. The Sunday Times has an article considering the upcoming UK by-elections and the role of climate policies in determining their outcome. “Net-zero seemed far away the last time Selby voted; now, how parties approach the environment is central to their electoral offering,” it says. The article notes that while “few people” are critical of efforts to cut emissions, they are sceptical about the government’s plan to end sales of petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

The letter from energy companies is not the only climate-related rebuke to Sunak featured in the UK press over the weekend. The Guardian reports that 51 MPs – including four Conservatives – have issued a cross-party letter to the prime minister stating that he must uphold his £11.6bn climate finance commitment to developing countries. This comes after the same newspaper revealed earlier this month that “Sunak has drawn up plans to ditch the promise”. Meanwhile, a freedom of information request by the Guardian has resulted in the UK Foreign Office saying it does not know how many of its officials and diplomats are working on climate change and energy issues, despite providing this information in previous years.

In the EU, the Financial Times reports that leaders are “putting pressure on other big polluting countries” to cut their emissions faster “as it faces an internal fight about the bloc’s own climate targets”. 

US climate envoy John Kerry arrived in China on Sunday, starting a four-day trip, Chinese state broadcaster CGTN reports. The South China Morning Post covers the same news, saying the “two rival nations [will] restart global warming talks”. BBC News says that Kerry may try to convince China to “fully capitalise on its clean energy resources and achieve carbon neutrality more quickly”, citing experts. It adds that China’s “wishlist may include the removal of a recently reinstated US tariff on Chinese-manufactured solar panels”. CNN writes that “experts don’t expect any major announcements from Kerry’s trip, but they say the optics are significant”. Politico reports that Kerry said last Thursday he will not be “conceding anything” during this trip as he “seeks to reestablish dialogue to combat climate change”. US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that China should be pressured to “take significant, substantial action“ in cutting emissions and addressing climate change, according to another Politico article.

Meanwhile, China “stressed ensuring energy and power supply in summer” at a meeting chaired by premier Li Qiang last Friday, reports the state news agency Xinhua. 21st Century Business Herald says that many regions have met the “peak electricity demand” for summer in advance. The China Electricity Council, an industry association, predicts that this year’s highest electricity load nationwide could reach approximately 1370 gigawatts (GW), an increase of 80GW from 2022, the outlet adds. Additionally, the National Energy Administration (NEA), the country’s top energy regulator, will “comprehensively accelerate” the construction of a “unified national electricity market system” and formulate the “1+N” basic rules and regulations for the market, reports the Shanghai Securities News. (See Carbon Brief’s explanation on “1+N” here.)

In other China news, Clean Energy Wire focuses on the German government’s first-ever “strategy on China”, which intends to “pressure China to raise its climate targets”. CNN also covers the document, citing a paper saying that Germany “wanted to maintain trade and investment ties with China, while reducing dependencies in critical sectors by diversifying its supply chains”. China Briefing carries an analysis by editor Arendse Huld. She writes that the German document “largely echoes the European Council’s official decision towards China, “derisking” instead of “decoupling”. Semafor carries an article, titled “China’s EV makers look to Europe as ‘main battleground’”. 

Separately, China Electric Power News quotes experts’ views on China’s carbon  “dual control” (see 14 July Daily Briefing). Li Boqiang, a professor at Xiamen University, says the new policy needs to clarify areas, such as “the allocation of carbon emission targets for different regions”. Financial media Caixin has an interview with Huang Zhen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering on “the logic of energy transition”. The Communist Party-backed People’s Daily carries a comment piece by commentator Chen Ling, saying that China should “promote energy science and technology to strengthen energy security”. Bloomberg writes that China’s experiments on solar panels off its eastern coast is a “crucial step toward a new breakthrough for clean energy”. 

Elsewhere, China Daily says that, according to a survey by climate change consultancy ICF, “the trading of carbon emission allowances in China is expected to increasingly affect investment decisions as the carbon price rises steadily”. Finally, the South China Morning Post explains where China stands concerning El Nino’s implications for “global energy, trade and agriculture”. 

Despite making pledges to cut oil-and-gas production in recent years, many fossil-fuel companies have recently backtracked on those commitments, according to the Guardian. “It is evidence that they are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits, experts say,” it says. In the UK, another Guardian article reports that asset managers at Legal & General, abrdn and Janus Henderson “voted against the climate resolutions put forward by Follow This, a Dutch shareholder activist group, at the annual general meetings of the US oil companies Chevron and ExxonMobil this year, having voted in favour of them in previous years”. Meanwhile, the Press Association covers new analysis by the campaign group Global Witness, which concludes that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – the oil giant headed by COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber – is on course to emit close to the amount China does annually between now and 2050.

In Canada, Global News reports that, 14 years after pledging with the rest of the G20 to wean fossil-fuel companies off government subsidies, the government is set to publish policy guidelines that will lay out an end to domestic subsidies for projects that cannot be squared with Canada’s climate commitments.

Germany has cut greenhouse gas emissions faster than the UK since the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming, reports the Financial Times, “further undermining the Sunak government’s claim to global climate leadership”. The newspaper adds: “Germany’s emissions have fallen by 17% between 2016 and 2022 while the UK’s fell by 14% over the same period, official data published by each country shows. The UK record was better over the period since 1990 when its emissions peaked, with a reduction of 48.7% compared to Germany’s 40%. However, the UK’s slowing pace relative to peers adds to concerns that its progress is stalling as ministers grapple with the challenges of cutting emissions from heating and industry. The trend also undercuts the UK’s oft-repeated claim that it is ‘cutting emissions faster than any other G7 country’.”

In other German news, Tagesschau reports that, in the first half of the year, “slightly less” electricity was generated from renewables in Germany than over the same period last year, despite the commissioning of “numerous” new photovoltaic and wind turbines. According to the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), production amounted to almost 136 terawatt hours (TWh) – a decrease of around 1% due to worse weather conditions. Meanwhile, Handelsblatt reports that, according to a survey of 924 companies, almost 80% rate the prospects for a “climate-neutral energy supply” in northern Germany as “rather good” or “very good”, while only 30% of the companies say the same about the southern federal states. In addition, at his traditional summer press conference, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, as reported by Tagesspiegel, mentioned that to achieve the government’s objective of having 80% of electricity generated by renewables by 2030, the power grid will need to be expanded and the charging network for electric cars improved. Scholz also mentioned the need for the planned construction of “hydrogen-capable gas power plants” and establishment of a hydrogen network. Der Spiegel explains that the German government wants to promote the construction of “hydrogen-capable gas-fired power plants” with a capacity of up to 25 gigawatts (GW), which will initially be operated with “natural” gas and later with “green hydrogen”. Anke Weidlichm, an energy system researcher from the University of Freiburg, says: “There would be a good 50 or more systems throughout Germany.” Der Spiegel notes that Germany wants to source the funding for gas power plants from the European Commission as part of its decarbonisation drive. But, highlights the outlet, “the construction of new power plants based on the climate-damaging burning of natural gas can hardly be classified as a phase-out of fossil fuels”. Therefore, only the “climate-friendly hydrogen part of the investments could be funded, which would drastically reduce the number of subsidies”, it explains.

Finally, Deutsche Welle reports that activists from Germany’s Last Generation climate protest group blocked traffic in Berlin, claiming the government has broken the law by failing to submit an immediate strategy for Germany to comply with its Climate Protection Act to achieve net-zero by 2045. Some activists wore the masks of government figures, including chancellor Olaf Scholz, economics and climate change minister Robert Habeck and transport minister Volker Wissing, notes the outlet.

Hydropower projects in flood-hit India’s Himalayan states are slowly coming back online even as weather agencies predict more “heavy to very heavy rainfall” this week, Bloomberg reports. Public and private hydro projects are operating again “after being clogged by silt from the floods”, but “nearly 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of capacity” remained offline, as of Sunday, the article adds. While India “sees hydropower as vital to its energy transition, environmental and social challenges have slowed capacity additions and boosted costs”, with one river conservationist telling Bloomberg that “the infrastructure we’re building in the path of a furious river can in no way be a disaster-resilient infrastructure”. In the Hindustan Times, experts harked back to the disastrous 2013 Kedarnath floods which claimed 6,000 lives, saying that “rampant and unabated construction” have since been “undertaken against the opinion of scientists, geologists and experts”. As large parts of Delhi remain flooded following last week’s intense rainfall, an editorial in the Hindu says that “blame games and pointing to record rains are unhelpful”, calling on states to “set aside their differences and evolve a joint strategy on countering future floods”, as they are doing with air pollution. 

Meanwhile, in a joint statement on Saturday, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said that “developed nations must fulfil the $100bn delivery plan to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change”, FirstPost reports. India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and US treasury secretary Janet Yellen have met on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers meeting, saying that India and the US are committed to “exploring alternate mechanisms for funding renewable energy”, Press Trust of India reports.

One in 10 departures from UK airports are now private jets, according to analysis of official data after the pandemic carried out by campaign group Possible and covered by the Times. “The growth in private flights poses a challenge to Britain’s 2050 net-zero goal, with the planes carrying an average of three passengers or [fewer],” the article states, adding that “a recent government-commissioned report said almost all of the emissions savings needed to hit the target could be achieved by halving private jet flights”. The Independent reports that Rishi Sunak’s government has “blocked the release” of information detailing how often the prime minister uses private jets to travel around the UK. Meanwhile, the Guardian covers a new report by thinktank the New Economics Foundation, which concludes that declining business travel and lower wages in aviation undermine claims made by the industry that expanding the UK’s airport capacity will help to boost the economy. “Airports around the UK are seeking to expand, despite the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee that there should be no additional capacity to meet the country’s 2050 net-zero targets,” the article notes. Finally, another Guardian story reports that “green energy tycoon” Dale Vince is planning to launch Britain’s first electric airline, dubbed Ecojet, “early next year” with a 19-seater plane travelling on a route between Edinburgh and Southampton.

Veteran climate activist Bill McKibben has an article in the New Yorker reflecting on oil companies’ recent efforts to backtrack on their climate action just as temperature records are being shattered around the world. He notes that the BBC aired an interview with Shell chief executive Wael Sawan in which he said cutting fossil fuel production would be “dangerous and irresponsible” on 6 July – “the day that many scientists believe was the hottest so far in human history”. McKibben says that, in the US, there is “no real political penalty” for Republican politicians “expending far more energy in defending gas stoves than in doing anything about this growing crisis”. He concludes: “If the disasters we’re seeing this month aren’t enough to shake us out of that torpor, then the chances of our persevering for another hundred and twenty-five thousand years seem remote.” Writing in Drilled, Amy Westervelt comments on a recent article by Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in which she stated that she has changed her mind about giving fossil fuel companies a seat at the table in climate negotiations, in light of their recent actions to scale up production. “Particularly as we hurtle toward a COP deeply co-opted by fossil fuel interests, I hope to see Figueres as loudly and prominently criticising that influence as she once welcomed it,” Westervelt writes.

In the Guardian, columnist Jonathan Freedland looks at the recent extreme weather and asks why the climate movement is not having more of an impact. He says activists and scientists “have not been communicating the threat loudly enough or in the right way. And some of the most committed fighters in this battle are saying so”. He says unlike “their polluting opponents, who hire ad men steeped in marketing science to push their message relentlessly”, these groups have “devoted relatively few resources to reaching or persuading the public”. In the Daily Express, Joanne Nightingale, chief adviser for climate change at WWF-UK, warns of the threat that heatwaves pose to nature. “We can stop the destruction of nature, secure a safe climate and bring our world back to life but we need to hold the government to account to keep their climate promises and support farmers to bring back nature,” she writes.

The Financial Times has an editorial warning that “the west” needs to “wake up to the necessity of securing the materials that power the green transition”. It lists three key issues, starting with the facts that “China dominates critical mineral extraction and refining to an astonishing degree” and that “the west’s mining sector cannot solve critical mineral shortages on its own”. The editorial says western nations will need to provide “sweeteners” to developing nations with large mineral deposits such as trade deals and support for infrastructure projects. It also notes that “coordination between western partners is key”. In his newsletter for the New York Times, columnist Peter Coy cites the issue of mineral shortages for batteries as he expresses scepticism about an “all-electric” approach to road transport decarbonisation in the US. He argues that hybrid vehicles, which still use fossil fuels, “seem like a valuable part of the vehicle mix”.

On the topic of electric vehicles, the right-leaning press continues its pushback against the UK government target to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030. This includes a Daily Telegraph editorial, which also takes swipes at other areas of net-zero policy. It says that while other countries, such as Canada and the EU, are waiting until 2035 to ban fossil-fuelled cars, “the UK…is pushing ahead with the ban, such that other countries can learn from the costly mistakes that will inevitably be made in its implementation”. Finally, net-zero secretary Grant Shapps has an article in the Sun in which he takes aim at “petrol stations overcharging drivers at pumps”.

The drought resistance of plants on land – their ability to maintain original levels during drought – declined “significantly” across all biomes over 1982-2015, according to new research. The authors use satellite data to assess changes in drought resistance and resilience over 1982-2015. They find that evergreen broadleaf forests saw the greatest drop in drought resistance. The paper also finds a “slight decreasing trend” in the drought resilience of plants on land – their ability to recover to pre-drought levels after droughts – mainly due to temperature and soil moisture.