Many publications report on Australia experiencing its hottest day on record, with the national average temperature reaching a high of 40.9C. BBC News notes the nation is currently experiencing severe droughts and a bushfire crisis, and also includes a section in its coverage considering the role climate change has played. It includes a quote from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which says: “Australia’s climate is increasingly influenced by global warning and natural variability takes place on top of this background trend.” Sky News reports that the small outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia is forecast to peak at around 47C on Wednesday, making it one of the hottest places on Earth. The Sydney Morning Herald notes that some weather stations in central Australia recorded temperatures 16C higher than the usual December average and “more records may tumble” in New South Wales tomorrow.

There is extensive coverage of climate change and Australia in the Guardian, which puts the record heat on its print edition’s frontpage. The newspaper reports on a proposal by thinktank The Australia Institute, which says the Australian fossil-fuel industry should pay a national climate disaster fund levy to help cover the costs of fires, floods and other climate-related disasters. Another piece published by the Guardian comprises an extensive investigation into Aboriginal people’s response to climate change, under the headline, “First Nations people fear becoming Australia’s first climate refugees”. According to another article, a report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences finds that global warming has reduced Australian farms’ average annual profitability by 22% in the past two decades. Finally, a piece focuses on research by the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, which finds Australias are less split along partisan lines when it comes to climate change than Americans. The research concludes that 78% of Australians support reducing fossil fuel use and 64% back raising taxes to help achieve this target.

Meanwhile, Associated Press reports that US utility company Pacific Gas & Electric has been handed settlements totalling $24.5bn to help pay for the losses due to the catastrophic California wildfires last year. MailOnline reports on Japanese research which finds “once in a lifetime” snowfalls are five times more likely to hit Japan by the end of the century at current rates of climate change. And the Guardian’s environment editor Damian Carrington reports from North Darfur, Sudan, where he says “pioneering irrigation project” is helping to end “the first climate change war”.

In a letter to Boris Johnson, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has warned the UK must get its “house in order” on tackling climate change. According to the Press Association, CCC chair Lord Deben and CCC adaptation committee chair Baroness Brown stress that, ahead of next year’s COP26 summit, the UK’s efforts to deal with climate change are falling short of what is required. In a blog post to accompany the letter, CCC chief executive Chris Stark says: “With a strong parliamentary majority, there are no excuses for inaction. The next 12 months are likely to be the most important yet in defining the UK’s climate credentials.” BBC News coverage includes a rundown of the key areas in which the UK needs to step up its action, including better insulated buildings, looking into phasing out petrol and diesel cars earlier and delivering on the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge for 40GW of offshore wind by 2030.

The Financial Times reports that Britain’s energy market watchdog Ofgem has pledged to cut investor returns from April 2023 in a move intended to save consumers money, while also incentivising companies to make the changes to required to decarbonise the economy.

Seven shipping associations, representing 90% of the industry, have proposed a research fund of $5bn (£3.8bn) to work towards viable zero-carbon emission ships by the early 2030s, according to Sky News. It reports the new fund would be paid for by a mandatory $2 per tonne on fuel used by ships, which account for 2.2% of global CO2 emissions. Reuters notes the strategy is meant to help meet the target set by UN shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which aims to cut the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050. The Guardian says climate NGOs think the plan is not urgent enough to tackle emissions from this high-polluting sector. It includes a comment from Nico Muzi, director of communications and campaigns at Transport & Environment, who says: “That amount is simply ridiculous to spur innovation in the sector nor to be a driver to spur efficiency. If it is $2 per tonne of fuel, it is 42 times less than current CO2 prices in Europe”.

In the US, the NewYork Times reports that a group of 12 eastern states and the District of Columbia have released a draft plan for an “ambitious cap-and-trade programme” to curb tailpipe emissions from cars, trucks and other forms of transportation. Reuters, meanwhile, reports on a plan by Democrats to achieve net-zero emissions from drilling, mining and other activities on federal land and waters by 2040.

BusinessGreen reports that the City of London is due to host the UK’s first zero emission street, where only electric vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians can travel.

MailOnline reports that Greta Thunberg has been named one of the 10 most influential people in science in 2019 by Nature. In the journal’s profile of the young climate change activist, it quotes Sonia Seneviratne, a climate scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who says: “Some may wonder why a teenage girl should get more credit and attention for publicly lamenting a well-known dilemma than most climate researchers…As scientists, we normally don’t dare to express the truth in such heartfelt simplicity”. Meanwhile, the Times reports that a documentary film about Thunberg is in the works, covering her journey “from impassioned Swedish schoolgirl to the figurehead of a global climate protest movement”.

A piece by BNEF’s Michael Liebreich looks ahead to the coming decade, predicting the world will hit peak energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. “Just to be clear, we will not see the sort of decline demanded by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a 20% cut by 2030 to keep temperature rises to 2C, a 45% cut to remain under 1.5C – but I would guess at a drop of around 5%,” he says. In the piece, Liebreich considers trends such as the rise of renewables and electrification to support his case. While he notes this will not be enough “to put us fully on track to avoid appalling climate change impacts”, he says it will nevertheless be a “game-changer” and will demonstrate to “even the most pessimistic that we can bend the arc”. In a sister piece to the article, Liebreich looks at the result of the COP25 in Madrid last week, and again takes an optimistic view of the coming years for climate diplomacy. “By 2030, I believe we will be starting to see a glimmer of hope at the end of the climate change tunnel. We will have narrowed the range of outcomes, averted the worst, and seen the back of peak emissions,” he concludes.

Meanwhile, an opinion piece in the New York Times asks “what will it take to clean up the electricity grid”, concluding: “In the end, it is not the capacity of our steel mills or our trucks that will determine how fast we can go. The real question is whether the American people will elect a government in 2020 that is truly committed to salvaging a livable Earth for future generations”.

Climate Home News has a piece by Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change & Development (ICCCAD), on the disappointing ending to the recent COP25 climate talks in Madrid. (See Carbon Brief’s in-depth summary.) Huq, who has attended every one of the 25 COPs that have taken place, says the summits are failing and he will not go next year “unless major changes are made to achieve real action”. Specifically, he notes the practice of extending the conferences for days beyond their official end date. “This tendency, now standard practice at Cops, to take the negotiations into overtime for a day or more is not only extremely inefficient, but is also deeply unfair to the most vulnerable developing countries whose delegates cannot stay on,” he writes. “Thus the decisions made in the last hours of extra time are invariably detrimental to their interests and by the time they get home and see the final text they see their words have disappeared.”

Another piece on COP25 by David Wallace-Wells in New York magazine’s Intelligencer considers the outcome of this year’s event and asks what needs to happen next. “Are there any other ways, beyond the UN model, to organise or incentive that kind of global cooperation? I’ve heard from a number of economists, in the last few months, who would like to see the establishment of something like a WTO for climate — an independent organisation, capable of not just rewarding participation but also punish bad behaviour by nations,” he writes. “Whatever the path forward — an international UN-backed framework, a WTO-like structure, regional agreements instead of global ones, a superpower-led negotiation — it probably does require American leadership.” A piece in Mother Jones says the way to tackle climate change effectively is a “war effort”, including massive spending on clean energy research and development.

A new study explores how overshooting 1.5C to reach 2C of global warming could impact a range of Earth indicators, including coral reefs, Arctic sea ice, temperature, rainfall and plant growth. The research compares two scenarios: one where global temperature rise reaches 2C and remains at that level and one where temperatures reach 2C and then cool back down to 1.5C. The research finds that the risks for Arctic sea ice could be “considerably” higher under the 2C scenario, but that coral reefs face bleak prospects for survival after the 21st century under either scenario.