There is continued reporting on the extreme weather affecting many parts of the world. BBC News reports that 23 cities in Italy are on “high alert”. According to the broadcaster, local media are describing the heatwave as “settimana infernale” or “week of hell”. It adds that temperatures are expected to peak on Wednesday next week, with the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily forecast to see highs of around 46C or 47C. Politico reports that one-quarter of all hospital visits in Italy are now linked to heat-related illnesses, noting that temperatures surpassed 41C in Rome on Tuesday. Reuters also covers the spike in medical emergencies in Italy.

Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that wildfires are raging in Athens for a third day. According to the newspaper, water bombers flown in from Italy and France have joined the firefighting operation. Politico adds that hundreds of people have been evacuated due to the fires. Reuters reports that “Germany’s government said on Wednesday that suggestions of how to adapt to summer heatwaves like a public health group’s call for siestas should be taken ‘very seriously’ given sharply rising temperatures”. The Spanish city of Seville” is to introduce new bus stops that can lower the temperature around them by up to 20 degrees to help waiting passengers suffering in heatwaves”, the Daily Telegraph reports. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reports that the coastal waters around Spain have hit a record high July temperature of 24.6C, under the headline: “Come on in, the water’s lovely.”

In the US, Axios reports that more than 20% of the country’s population could “face an air temperature or heat index above 105F [40.6C] this weekend”. The Los Angeles Times says temperatures in Death Valley hit 116F [46.7C] at night while the Independent reports that “multiple passengers passed out and had to be wheeled away in stretchers and some reportedly soiled themselves on Monday after their Delta Air Lines flight sat in stifling heat on the tarmac at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas”. The Hill reports that the state of Kentucky has declared a state of emergency after a “historic” amount of rainfall triggered flooding throughout the state. Elsewhere, Axios reports that “hotter and drier-than-average conditions are fueling the [wildfire] disaster unfolding in Canada”. The Guardian adds: “Record blazes have left crews struggling to contain aggressive burns, with a shortage of personnel making things worse.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports: “Tropical Storm Calvin lashed Hawaii, raising the potential for flash flooding and dangerous surf on the Big Island.”

Elsewhere, Reuters says the World Health Organization has “urged governments and local authorities to set up a strong surveillance system” for those most at risk from extreme heat. YaleE360 says the extreme temperatures are due to a “stagnant jet stream”, which could be linked to climate change. Reuters discusses the impact of El Niño on the extreme weather. The Wall Street Journal discusses how extreme heat can impact your health. The Independent says that the weather extremes currently being experienced across the planet are “exactly what climate scientists have been predicting”, adding that 2023 is on track to become the hottest year on record. Focusing on the global picture, the New York Times maps extreme temperatures across the planet, the Guardian tells the story in four charts, and the Times uses both maps and charts to cover the current situation. The Economist discusses the link between climate change and record temperatures. And former BBC News environment analyst Roger Harrabin has a series of Tweets reporting his interview with former IPCC chair Prof Bob Watson. Harrabin says Watson told him that climate impacts are “more severe than we predicted”.

There is ongoing coverage of remarks about climate change, made by Chinese president Xi Jinping at a recent conference, with the South China Morning Post reporting him saying: “China’s commitments [on ‘dual carbon’ targets] are unswerving, but the path towards the goals as well as the manner, pace and intensity of efforts to achieve them should and must be determined by the country itself, rather than swayed by others”, reports the South China Morning Post. It quotes Xi saying: “[We should] actively and steadily work toward carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, foster a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy system, accelerate the formation of a new power system and strengthen the country’s capability of guaranteeing oil and gas security.” Xi’s comments “coincide” with the US special envoy on climate John Kerry’s visit to Beijing, the outlet adds. 

The Washington Post quotes Li Shuo, a senior policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia, who says that “Xi’s message – delivered at the same time Kerry was in town – was no coincidence”. The article also quotes Chen Ying, a researcher at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who tells Chinese media that the US is “ignoring China’s contributions and achievements in reducing emissions and blindly pressures China to make unrealistic commitments”. Bloomberg also reports the president’s remarks.

Separately, the state broadcaster CGTN writes that extremely high temperatures are “gradually reshaping industries and affecting people’s health” in China. Global Times has a report quoting academic Li Guoxiang saying that “the impact of extreme weather on China’s food supply is very limited”. The state-run newspaper Youth.cn writes that, according to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, there is an “evident progress of green and low-carbon transition” in China.

The Financial Times reports by the end of US climate envoy John Kerry’s trip in Beijing, Kerry said “the world’s biggest polluters had agreed to resume stalled talks on global warming ahead of the UN COP28 summit, as Washington and Beijing try to re-engage after a year of bilateral tensions”. Reuters reports: “Kerry said on Wednesday that China was working on final approval to release details of its plans to curb methane emissions.” The newswire adds: “Last year, Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said China had drafted a plan with concrete measures to curb methane emissions from energy, agriculture and waste. China has yet to make the plan public.”

On his last day, the state news agency Xinhua reports that Kerry met with Chinese vice president Han Zheng. According to the outlet, Han stressed that China is willing to work with the US to “seek common ground…and aims to promote the comprehensive implementation of the Paris Agreement and make new contributions to addressing global challenges such as climate change”. It adds Kerry saying that “the US and China have made significant efforts in climate change cooperation…the US is willing to engage in high-level collaboration with China to promote positive outcomes” at COP28. Reuters writes that Kerry says that climate change should be treated as a “free-standing” challenge that “requires the collective efforts of the world’s largest economies to resolve”. The Guardian also covers the story.

The Wall Street Journal publishes an editorial that says: “John Kerry was in Beijing this week to talk about climate change, but was the US climate envoy listening? Reports from the Communist Party and state-run press reveal how little progress he made.” Politico says the trip “yields no breakthrough on climate”.

Meanwhile, the New York Times writes that Henry Kissinger, the 100-year-old former secretary of state who pushed the US-China normalisation in the 1970s, made a “surprise visit” to Beijing to meet with China’s defence minister Li Shangfu. Spokesperson for the US department of state Matthew Miller says that Kissinger “did not act on behalf of the US government”, adds the outlet. ABC News reports that Kissinger said “neither the US nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary”.

“Senior New South Wales Liberals sought support from the Albanese government to generate carbon credits from ceasing logging in state forests only for their approach to be snubbed by their federal counterparts”, according to a Guardian “exclusive”.  The paper continues: “Documents obtained under freedom of information laws by the Nature Conservation Council of NSW reveal the then environment minister, James Griffin, and the then energy minister, Matt Kean, wrote to Tanya Plibersek and Chris Bowen seeking creation of new credits under the Emissions Reduction Fund.” It adds that the letter, sent in December, touted “significant carbon abatement” as well as benefits for threatened species and regional economies if the measure was implemented.

Separately, the Guardian says: “Labor has significantly beefed up its commitment to reduce emissions in the gas industry but still faces a fight at its national conference over ‘weak’ policies on native forest logging.” The paper continues: “Labor’s Environment Action Network (Lean) has now signed up 294 branches for its push to end native forest logging and broad-scale land clearing, but both policies were omitted from the draft national platform distributed to delegates on Monday.”

BBC News has a piece on the “Australian climate protesters cast as extremists”. And the environment reporter for the Guardian, Graham Readfearn, has a comment under the subheading: “Claiming ‘woke hysteria’ is driving policy, lobby group Advance Australia makes a series of claims by the usual suspects that are easily debunked.”

New analysis finds that on average, train tickets in Europe are double the price of flights for the same routes, the Guardian reports. Greenpeace compared tickets on 112 routes on nine different days, finding that train travel was more expensive on 79 of the routes, according to the newspaper. The paper quotes a climate campaigner at Greenpeace: “€10 airline tickets are only possible because others, like workers and taxpayers, pay the true cost…For the planet and people’s sake, politicians must act to turn this situation around and make taking the train the more affordable option.” The Times adds: “Greenpeace called for the ‘twisted economics’ of the transport industry to be fixed so people can take the less polluting option during a heatwave across southern Europe.” The Independent adds: “[Greenpeace] also said 3.4 million passengers fly between London and Edinburgh every year despite there being dozens of train connections every day. Greenpeace wants the government to ban short-haul flights where there are viable rail alternatives, end subsidies for airlines and airports, phase out tax exemptions for kerosene and introduce a frequent flyer levy. It is also calling for the introduction of ‘climate tickets’, which would allow travel on low-carbon forms of public transport in a country or region.”

In other UK news, the Press Association reports that 11 activists from “This is Rigged” have been arrested after targeting two oil sites in Scotland. The activists “claimed to have stopped oil leaving the sites and were seen protesting at the gates, sitting on pipes and on top of a tanker”, the newspaper says. Separately, the Press Association reports: “Energy security secretary Grant Shapps has accused Just Stop Oil protesters of ‘illegal criminal damage’ after two activists filmed themselves spraying his department’s building with orange paint.”

Elsewhere, the Financial Times reports that one of the UK’s biggest offshore wind farm projects has been “halted”, after costs on the project rose by 40%. The newspaper adds: “Norfolk Boreas had been one of the biggest new projects in the offshore wind pipeline, set to power 1.5m homes in the first phase of major developments by Vattenfall.” Separately, the Financial Times says “India’s Tata Group on Wednesday ended months of suspense with news that it would build a £4bn gigafactory in the UK, which will be big enough to supply not just its own luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, but other customers.” The Daily Telegraph reports that “the National Grid has sold off more of Britain’s gas network to foreign investors just days after Grant Shapps raised doubts about plans to use the infrastructure for hydrogen heating”.

Rescue workers “battled difficult terrain and bad weather” searching for survivors of a landslide that killed at least 10 people in Irshalwadi, 37 miles from Mumbai, Reuters reports. The hamlet lies in the coastal district of Raigad, which received “as much as 400mm rain in the last 24 hours”, the newswire adds. The “incessant rain” has “closed schools, flooded roads and disrupted transport in both Maharashtra and Gujarat”, with authorities issuing a red alert for “extremely heavy rainfall” in Goa, west and central Maharashtra and Gujarat, the Indian Express reports. In north India, the Yamuna river has flooded India’s holy cities of Mathura and Vrindavan, says Reuters in another story, with some residents “trapped in their homes because of the muddy, still water that has been skimming their doorsteps this week”. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that heavy rains might actually increase the life span of the Taj Mahal. Over 400 ecologists have written to India’s environment and climate change minister to express “serious concerns” about changes to the country’s central forest conservation act, the Hindu reports. The paper says the letter cautions that “while ensuring the military security of the country is a priority, it should not come at the cost of losing our ecological security” and that “natural ecosystems play a crucial role in buffering against increasingly unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change”. The letter urges the minister and members of parliament to “not to table the Forest Conservation Amendment Bill, 2023, during the monsoon session”, the Hindustan Times reports. The letter “follows several such petitions by retired civil servants, experts on forest rights, opposition MPs, people and groups from the northeast, legal and policy experts”, it adds.

India’s Tata group’s decision to build a £4bn battery “gigafactory” in Somerset is “a big moment for the UK car industry,” writes business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch in the Financial Times. She continues: “There is opportunity, but also great risk, for the UK as the world transitions to electric vehicles. Other countries have embarked on colossal spending sprees to claim a share of the growing market. For those of us who still believe in some semblance of a free market, it is a battle of wits competing with countries prepared to offer eye-watering sums to pry business away from our shores.” [The UK government has reportedly promised hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidy to Tata.]

An editorial in the Sun welcomes the news of the gigafactory but expresses concern over whether it will make electric cars “cheaper and with far better mileages.” It writes: “As long as manufacturers demand mind-boggling sums for vehicles with derisory ranges, the revolution will remain stalled.”

Finally, an editorial in the Daily Mail comments on a video of a motorist assaulting a Just Stop Oil protestor during a slow-march yesterday. It writes: “The Mail deplores violence, but this was entirely predictable. Politicians and police have been so spectacularly useless at preventing disruption to people’s lives, what did they think would happen?”

In the Guardian, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, criticises the opposition Labour Party’s stance on climate change. She writes: “[T]he revelation that a Labour government would not revoke the Rosebank oilfield licence…is a tacit endorsement of this climate crime.” She adds: “[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been hamstrung by his own arbitrary fiscal rules, fear of rightwing press backlash, and a tribal determination to take control from rival party factions. The clear, radical and modern vision for Britain is nowhere to be seen.”

Meanwhile, Conservative former energy secretary Andrea Leadsom writes for the Times Red Box under the headline: “We mustn’t let Labour take Net Zero from us.” Leadsom says: “Our environmental strategy to decarbonise while growing the economy and exploiting the opportunities of net-zero has been a great success of the past thirteen years of Conservative government. As Labour try to convince the public of their strategy, we must remind them when it comes to a clean, green, net-zero growth plan, we got there first.”

Elsewhere, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and former chair of the Climate Change Committee Lord Adair Turner writes for the Financial Times that long-term supply of key minerals for the energy transition is “[O]ne thing we don’t need to worry about.” For all key minerals, he writes, “known resources easily exceed total future requirements”. The challenge, he says, is rather “growing supply [of minerals] fast enough to meet rapidly growing demand” – as well as building “more diverse supply chains” than at present.

Also in the Times Red Box, Jack Richardson, head of energy and climate at centre-right thinktank Onward calls for “planning reform” to expedite an increase in renewables that “will fuel economic growth and ensure we [the UK] cannot again be held to ransom by petrostates”. Richardson calls on the government to establish a new “Green Energy Covenant” directing cash from new energy projects “directly to local areas” and “letting them decide how to spend it.” He writes: “As much as £3.7bn could be leveraged for investment, all the while reducing energy bills across the country by moving away from volatile fossil fuels.”

In the Guardian, climate scientist Michael Mann and science communicator Susan Joy Hassol write: “The warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date data for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modellers warned decades ago”. They continue: “These episodes are a reminder that we can not only expect to see records broken, but shattered, if we continue burning fossil fuels and heating up the planet.”

An editorial in the Financial Times writes that “the heat is physical proof of the need for political leaders to direct and mobilise the kind of financial and technological resources that were brought to bear on the Covid-19 pandemic, in the even bigger, long-term pursuit of tackling climate change”.

For the Daily Telegraph, climate sceptic former Conservative peer Matt Ridley writes under the headline: “The BBC has co-opted bad weather to its alarmist climate crusade.” He writes: “Incidentally, the heat today is nothing to what our recent ancestors probably experienced after the invention of agriculture.” [The Holocene climatic optimum was a period around 6,000 years ago when orbital forcing resulted in the northern hemisphere being exceptionally warm in summer. The IPCC says that global temperatures are hotter now than they have been for 125,000 years.]

Abrupt shifts between hot and wet extremes became 22% more frequent every decade over 1956-2015, according to new research. The authors assess two types of interacting hot and wet extremes – humid heat extremes followed by pluvial flooding and extreme pluvials followed by humid heat. They find that these events occurred every 6 to 7 years on average during warm seasons over 1956–2015. This is 15% more often than would be expected by chance, according to the paper. “Increases in hot-wet compound events have largely been linked to warming,” the paper adds.