Global hunger fell for a third straight year in 2024, with 673 million people – 8.2% of the world’s population – experiencing hunger, according to a new report by the UN covered by Reuters. According to the newswire, “the most significant progress was registered in South America and Southern Asia”. However, it adds: “The picture is very different in Africa, where productivity gains are not keeping up with high population growth and the impacts of conflict, extreme weather and inflation.” The Associated Press reports that around two-thirds of Africa’s population are “unable to afford a healthy diet”. It adds that “conflicts, economic instability and climate shocks” are “driving alarming levels of acute food insecurity in 22 ‘hunger hot spots’” across the continent. In its coverage of the report, Euronews says: “International aid to agriculture doesn’t meet the needs of small-scale farmers: in fact, they receive less than 1% of climate finance, which amounts to slightly more than €4bn per year, when they would need more than €70bn.” Bloomberg also covers the report. 

There is widespread coverage of the US-EU trade deal, announced on Sunday, which includes an EU pledge to purchase $750bn of energy from the US. The Financial Times reports that under the deal, EU companies would be “require[d]” to “buy $250bn worth of US oil, natural gas and nuclear technologies for each of the next three years”. It continues: “Analysts were puzzled by a target that would involve decisions by shareholder-owned companies in a continent also trying to decarbonise its economy.” However, the newspaper says that experts have called the deal “impossible to meet” and “based on ‘pie in the sky’ numbers”. It adds: “Last year, the EU imported more than $435.7bn worth of energy – but US fossil fuel supplies to the bloc accounted for just $75bn.” Politico reports that by pledging to buy American energy, the EU “narrowly avoided a full-blown trade war with Donald Trump”. However, it says that achieving the goal “will be almost impossible”. Bloomberg says: “European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc’s estimates were based on the existing plan to shift away from remaining Russian fossil fuel supplies and purchasing ‘more affordable and better’ liquefied natural gas from US producers.” Reuters, Bloomberg, Euractiv and the Wall Street Journal also cover the deal.

MORE ON EU

• Reuters reports that “the Portuguese government plans to invest up to €400m ($46m) to improve grid management and boost battery storage following a massive blackout across Spain and Portugal in April”.
• The Associated Press says Portuguese authorities “announced a raft of measures” to improve the grid yesterday.
• The Times has ongoing coverage of the wildfires in southern Europe under the headline: “Four dead in Turkey wildfires as blazes continue across Greece.”
• Sky News also covers the fires, reporting that “at least 17” people have been killed and that “thousands” have been forced to “flee their homes”.
• Reuters says that “severe overnight floods” in eastern Romania have killed three people, with “hundreds” evacuated.

There is ongoing media coverage of the extreme heat across the US. The Guardian reports that “the south-east is likely to endure the most dangerous temperatures”. The newspaper continues: “While no one single weather event can be blamed on the global climate crisis, the warming world is experiencing a greater frequency of extreme weather incidents. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), excessive heat is already the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the US, and the problem is only intensifying.” According to the New York Times, the heatwave is due to “a persistent dome of high pressure over the center of the country”. Bloomberg says the heat is “boosting power demand and raising health risks”. Inside Climate News says: “As heat grips Illinois this summer, one group is more vulnerable to extreme heat than any other: Those incarcerated inside the state’s decaying prisons and jails.”

MORE ON US

• The Environmental Protection Agency is due to unveil a proposal to scrap a “landmark determination that planet-warming gases endanger public health and welfare”, Bloomberg reports. It adds that the move is “threatening to strike a deep blow at Washington’s ability to fight climate change”.
• Politico reports that the Environmental Protection Agency “plans to suspend requirements for oil and gas operations to limit their methane emissions using a regulatory maneuver that environmental attorneys say is a backdoor bid to avoid public notice and comment”.
• Yale Climate Connections says the 4 July floods in central Texas “rank as the 10th-deadliest flash flood in US history”.
• Reuters reports that after Trump’s climate-policy rollbacks, electric vehicle sales will make up less than a fifth of the US market by 2030, according to forecasts, down from the 24% share that had been expected in January.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has launched a “new early warning initiative” named MAZU, which aims to establish a global “service network” in the face of “escalating climate threats”, state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN) reports. It quotes CMA head Chen Zhenlin saying that creating “accessible early warnings” is a “key mission for China”, according to the broadcaster. It adds that China has “already collaborated with nations like Pakistan, Ethiopia and the Solomon Islands to develop cloud-based early warning platforms”. The CMA also “reaffirmed its commitment to assist developing nations in boosting climate adaptation, accelerating progress toward global early warning coverage by 2027”, it says.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s solar industry association raised its forecast for 2025 solar capacity installations from 215-255 gigawatts (GW) to 270-300GW, Jiemian reports.
• Authorities in Beijing are “urging residents to stay indoors” as parts of the Chinese capital face a “high risk” of floods, Bloomberg reports.
• State news agency Xinhua says that the NDRC has allocated 50m yuan ($7m) to “assist relief efforts” in Hebei province following a “severe flooding disaster”.
• New NDRC measures say new “fixed asset” project proposals will be evaluated based on energy efficiency and carbon emissions, International Energy Net reports. 
• Science and Technology Daily examines how “intensifying” climate change is damaging sites of historical and cultural significance in China.
• China Energy Net reports how clean-energy transmission from Tibet to other Chinese provinces is “set for significant growth” in the next five-year plan period (2026-2030).

According to a draft of the 2026 federal budget, expected to be adopted on Wednesday, Germany plans to cut energy costs for consumers and businesses by €42bn between 2026 and 2029 using its climate and transformation fund (KTF), Reuters reports. Of that, €26bn will subsidise electricity transmission network costs, notes the outlet. Table.Media reports that the government also plans to spend about €40bn annually from the special infrastructure fund over the same period, which would exhaust the fund by 2032 rather than 2036. WirtschaftsWoche highlights that the budget includes new debt of €174bn for 2026 alone, with total borrowing expected to reach €851bn by 2029. Still, a funding gap of around €172bn remains for 2027 to 2029, it says. The German Green Party’s Sebastian Schäfer criticised the budget, arguing that the ruling coalition “recklessly ignores social realities as well as ecological and global challenges”.

MORE ON GERMANY

• Bloomberg reports that South Africa is to receive a €500m loan from the German state-owned development bank KfW for the expansion of networks for solar and wind power plants.
• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that the EU’s Green Deal is under growing “pressure”, including existing laws such as the planned emissions trading system for buildings and transport. Set to begin in 2027, it should replace Germany’s current CO2 pricing and may lead to increased fuel prices, the article says. 

Prime minister Keir Starmer has said the UK “would benefit from working more closely with the US on small modular reactors”, Reuters reports, covering his meeting with US president Donald Trump. At his golf resort in Scotland yesterday, “Trump said the US would look into the opportunity for smaller nuclear plants”, according to the newswire. Many newspapers give the Trump-Starmer meeting prominent coverage, including a frontpage story in the Times that quotes Trump saying: “When we go to Aberdeen, you’ll see some of the ugliest windmills you’ve ever seen…And you can take 1,000 times more energy out of a hole in the ground this big. It’s called oil and gas, and you have it there in the North Sea.” The newspaper says Trump told Starmer “the one who gives you the lowest energy prices, the best kind of energy” is likely to win voters. The newspaper adds: “Starmer, who has made decarbonising the grid a key promise, disagreed, saying that Britain needed a “mix” of energy including wind and solar to ensure ‘energy independence’.” A frontpage story in the Daily Mail that says Trump called wind turbines “ugly monsters”, as he “backed North Sea oil and gas during the press conference”. The Financial Times reports that Trump “urged Starmer to increase oil and gas drilling in the North Sea”. The Guardian factchecks Trump’s “unprompted tirade against windfarms”, including his false claim that wind is “the most expensive form of energy”. The Guardian says Starmer defended investment in wind power. 

MORE ON UK

• The Daily Telegraph reports that a group of MPs have written a letter to the government calling for a delay before the UK’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) is linked to the EU’s. It adds: “A government spokesperson said: ‘A linking agreement will create a larger and more efficient carbon market…[that] will also mean UK firms will be exempt from EU carbon tariffs on £7bn worth of exports.”

Clyde Russell, the Asia commodities and energy columnist for Reuters, says the EU’s pledge to spend $250bn per year on US energy imports is “delusional”.  Russell says: “There are strong echoes of Donald Trump’s failed trade deal with China from his first term as US president in the framework agreement reached with the European Union…This is a delusional level of imports that the EU has virtually no chance of meeting, and one that US producers would also struggle to supply…What happens when the inevitable failure is realised? Perhaps the EU is hoping for the same outcome as China did with the first trade war with Trump in 2019. Run down the clock, talk nice, and hope the next US president is easier to deal with.”

MORE TRUMP COMMENT

• An editorial in the Sun editorial says of the US-EU trade deal: “Brussels also ripped up its various green pledges in order to import $750bn of US gas.” [It does not explain which “green pledges” had to be “ripped up” in order to make this pledge.]
• Similarly, for the Daily Mail, climate-sceptic columnist Andrew Neil writes: “[T]hus did Brussels, the great proponent of all things net-zero, abase itself before The Donald by agreeing to purchase massive quantities of US fossil fuel.” 
• A Daily Telegraph editorial comments on Trump’s meeting with Starmer, describing wind turbines as “dark satanic ‘windmills’” and saying the pursuit of net-zero will be in “in…vain”. It says: “On energy, taxation, immigration and crime, the president delivered what amounted to an extended rebuke to Britain’s hapless prime minister.”
• Greg Dickinson, the Daily Telegraph’s senior travel writer, says: “Stop moaning, Nimbys – wind turbines have made Britain more beautiful.”

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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