Hurricane Dorian receives continued, widespread coverage of the toll it has inflicted in the Bahamas, where Reuters says there is an “unfolding humanitarian crisis”. The newswire says the winds had weakened to Category 2, but that Dorian had expanded in size and was due to come “dangerously close” to Florida’s east coast over the next 36 hours. Politico, the Washington Post and Vox also cover the aftermath and rescue efforts in the Bahamas while several reports, including another Washington Post piece, look ahead as Dorian approaches the US coast. The Post says: “Landfall in the Carolinas has become more likely, with storm surge flooding, high winds and heavy rains the key threats.” The Hill reports how Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted footage of the damage saying: “This is what climate change looks like.” A second Hill story reports that Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said: “Hurricane Dorian has everything to do with climate change.” A number of publications explore the links between the hurricane and climate change in more detail. E&E News says it could be the fifth major storm to threaten the US in three years, “driving home scientists’ warnings that climate change is shaping powerful tropical systems”. It adds that the storm’s “erratic behaviour [stalling for hours without moving from its position over Grand Bahama] was consistent with what scientists say future storms will look like in a warming climate”. It adds that five of the 10 strongest Atlantic storms on record have occurred since 2016 and that “scientists have warned that hurricane intensity will rise…as ocean waters warm”. The Economist says “[C]limate change does not yet appear to be making hurricanes more frequent. Climate experts, however, are increasingly persuaded that global warming is making them more severe.” The New York Times also tackles how climate change has affected Dorian, noting recent research that shows “climate change has made stalled Atlantic storms more common”. Associated Press explains how Dorian has moved slowly due to unusually calm conditions in the upper atmosphere. InsideClimate News says this fits a pattern seen in recent decades that is expected to continue as the planet warms: “hurricanes stalling over coastal areas and bringing extreme rainfall”. The Guardian reports on the experiences of those living through the hurricane in the Bahamas, noting that Dorian had “the strongest landfall wind speed of any Atlantic hurricane on record”. Reuterscarries a feature on the “warnings and waiting” for residents on Florida’s coast while another Reuters article relates how beaches in the region around Jacksonville have only just been restored in a $16m project but are now “about to [be] pound[ed] again”, highlighting “coastal cities’ endless rebuilding task”. It says: “Sandy beaches are a prime tourist draw in Florida. The land behind them has become increasingly valuable and developed over the last century, requiring elaborate efforts to stop the coastline from changing too much through natural erosion brought about by storms and rising sea levels caused by climate change.” Separately, Reuters reports that tropical storm Fernand is due to strengthen before reaching the coast of Mexico today. Finally, Climate Home News reports that a spike in natural disasters in 2017 and 2018 is to cause reinsurance rates to rise by up to 5%.

The Scottish government has made tackling climate change the centrepiece of its 2019-2020 programme for government, the Financial Times and others report. Plans include promoting low-carbon aircraft, trains and buses, as well as district heating schemes, the paper says. The Scottish government’s support for the North Sea oil and gas industry is to become conditional on support for a transition to sustainable energy, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said, according to the FT. The Scotsman reports that she nevertheless “refuse[d] to commit to ending North Sea oil production”. The Scottish Sun reports on the plans, focusing on a £500m fund to create bus lanes to help encourage motorists off the road. BusinessGreen also covers the story. Meanwhile, the Times reports on the UK oil and gas industry’s plan to cut its emissions, launched today. It says North Sea oil and gas platforms could draw power from offshore windfarms to cut their direct emissions and adds: “[Trade body Oil & Gas UK] insisted it was not accountable for the far greater emissions generated by customers actually using the fossil fuels it produces.” BusinessGreen also covers the industry plan, while the Scotsman reports how activists staged a “die in” at the opening of a major oil and gas conference in Aberdeen. The Guardian reports that the UK is facing “growing outrage” from the European Commission and some EU member states over its plans to leave some decommissioned North Sea oil and gas infrastructure in place rather than removing it altogether. Separately, BusinessGreen looks ahead to today’s UK government spending review, asking “how green is [it] likely to be?”. It quotes various commentators suggesting the review of spending over the next 12 months may have more of an economic focus, although one speculates pledges could include efforts to improve the efficiency of homes.

The Greenland ice sheet may have melted by a record amount this year, scientists say, reports BBC News. In an extended feature on ice around the Arctic, science editor David Shukman returns to the Sermilik glacier that he previously visited in 2004 and quotes researchers saying they’re “astounded” by the rate of melt of the Greenland sheet. BBC News says this sheet stores enough water to raise global sea levels by 7m if it all melted, adding: “No one is suggesting that could happen for hundreds or even thousands of years but even a small increase in the rate of melting in coming decades could threaten millions of people living in low-lying areas.” Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Russia’s government plans to support private oil and gas firms investing in projects in the Arctic, which the newswire says is “expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice and technology advances”. Separately, MailOnline reports that the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is now “almost a quarter thinner” than in the 1970s.

Prince Harry, who has been criticised for using private jets while endorsing environmental causes, said yesterday he only uses them rarely, for safety reasons, Reuters reports, adding that the prince takes steps to offset the CO2 from his flights. Reuters reports that the prince made the comments about private jets at an event where he had launched an initiative to make the travel industry more sustainable. In the Guardian, environment correspondent Fiona Harvey asks if it is right to use a private jet while campaigning on climate change. Separately another Reuters article reports comments from the head of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) saying that the “flight shaming” movement born in Sweden will also reach north America. The article says the movement “has hit air travel in Europe, where environmentally conscious travellers are choosing trains over planes”.

Writing in the Financial Times, Adam Tooze says: “Dorian is both a historic shock and a harbinger of the future. In a world of accelerating climate change, the grim videos beamed from the cell phones of people fleeing the floodwaters in Marsh Harbour and Grand Bahama are a trailer for storms to come.” In the New York Times, columnist David Leonhardt writes under the headline and subhead: “Hurricanes are getting worse. Why are so many people afraid to talk about climate change?” He says the frequency of severe hurricanes in the Atlantic has “roughly doubled over the last two decades and climate change appears to be the reason”. In the Guardian, climate scientists Prof Mike Mann and Prof Andrew Dessler write: “We know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures.” They add: “While the science has yet to come in on the specifics of just how much worse climate change made Dorian, we already know enough to say that warming worsened the damage.” In another comment piece in the Guardian, Kate Aronoff reflects on the damage caused by Dorian and asks “How much destruction is needed for us to take climate change seriously?”

The impact of the natural climate phenomenon El Niño on the tropics is being heightened by human-caused climate change, a study finds. El Niño is a climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean that periodically affects weather in many parts of the world. The new study finds that past El Niño events, including the 2015/16, caused particularly severe drought in the tropics, including in the tropical rainforests of the Amazon and the Congo. The maximum temperature reached during these events “were particularly exacerbated compared to previous strong El Niños because they were amplified by the warming trend”, the authors say.