There is extensive coverage across the UK media – both news and comment (see below) – of the latest protest by climate activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR), which saw them temporarily blockade three printworks owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. Reuters says that the distribution of several newspapers, ranging from the Sun and Times, through to the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times, was disrupted for several hours by the protests on Saturday morning. BBC News says: “Demonstrators have accused the papers of failing to report on climate change. XR used vehicles to block roads to the printing plants, while individual protesters chained themselves to structures…Newsprinters…condemned the protests as an ‘attack on all of the free press’, which it said had affected workers going about their jobs and others such as newsagents who faced ‘financial penalty’…XR has accused the newspapers and their owners of ‘failure to report on the climate and ecological emergency’ and ‘polluting national debate’ on dozens of social issues.” The Press Association adds that, in addition to the newspaper protest, “more than 600 people have been arrested during five days of climate change protests in central London”. There has been near-universal condemnation of the newspaper protest by politicians. The Guardian says Boris Johnson, a former columnist and editor, has accused XR of seeking “to limit the public’s access to news” with the home secretary, Priti Patel, also saying the protest was “attacking democracy”. The Daily Telegraph reacted by making its online content free to read for the weekend, with the editor Chris Evans saying: “Whatever your politics you should be worried by this. There are also questions for the police who perhaps placed the right of these few people to protest above the right of the rest of the people to read a free press.” The Daily Telegraph also reports that “Extinction Rebellion could be treated as an organised crime group as part of a major crackdown on its activities that may also include new protections for MPs, judges and the press, The Telegraph can disclose”. The Guardian says XR has responded by describing the government moves to treat the protest movement as an organised crime group as “ridiculous”.

The Daily Telegraph also reports on the fallout, saying that “former and current Extinction Rebellion members and other environmentalists have accused the group of setting back action on climate change by blocking the printing of several newspapers”. Among others, it quotes Bob Ward, the policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, who said: “The criticism XR make of these newspapers is legitimate. But this is not the right way to tackle that problem.” Metro quotes Sir David Attenborough who said: “‘I don’t think it is sensible politics to break the law. If you are any good at all, some of your demands will be met and then you will be demanding people abide by those new laws. You can’t have it both ways.” The i newspaper quotes Craig Bennett, the former head of Friends of the Earth who now leads the Wildlife Trusts, who said: “It’s so incredibly important that they take the public with them and try and build support, rather than distancing the public. So I hope that they are thinking very carefully about how they make sure they do that.” Meanwhile, the Independent says the government has been branded “out of touch” by an alliance of scientists, activists, MPs, artists and ordinary citizens behind a sweeping proposal for a new climate change bill. Finally, the Independent says the UK government has “no plan to reach its own climate target”, according to a report from the Institute for Government.

There is widespread coverage in the US media on the record temperatures and extensive wildfires afflicting California. The Washington Post says: “California just witnessed one of its hottest weekends in memory, which intensified destructive wildfires that erupted. The scorching temperatures forced the National Weather Service to issue heat alerts for nearly the entire state. Many areas were also under red-flag warnings for high fire danger as the heat worsened blazes already burning and helped fuel new ones. Numerous locations in California experienced their hottest September day on record Sunday. A few spots saw their highest temperatures ever observed in any month. Woodland Hills, just 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles, soared to 121 degrees [Fahrenheit], the highest temperature ever observed in Los Angeles County.” Axios says “wildfires continue to ravage much of the state”, adding: “The record temperatures come less than a month after another heat wave saw the thermometer in Death Valley, Southern California, hit 130F.”

Reuters says it has seen a European Union proposal showing that it is “considering a new climate target for 2040, to give the bloc an emissions-cutting goal for each decade between now and 2050, when it hopes to reach ‘net zero’ emissions”. The newswire adds: “The EU is aiming to strike a deal this year on a law to make its climate targets legally binding, and member states will start discussions next week on the text. A proposal by Germany, which will lead the talks between countries, would fix a new EU emissions reduction target for 2040 to keep countries on track for the bloc’s flagship goal to become climate neutral by 2050…The climate law will need approval from EU member states and the European Parliament. While the 2040 target is unlikely to be a point of contention, lawmakers and countries are split over how strict other parts of the law should be.”

The Sunday Times reports on the prospect that “more nuclear power stations could close early as EDF wrestles with problems with patching up its ageing plants – just as Britain makes a big push to cut carbon emissions”. It adds: “The French power giant owns Britain’s fleet of eight nuclear power stations together with British Gas parent Centrica. They generated about 17% of the UK’s electricity last year. Early closure of the nuclear plants, built between the 1960s and 1980s, will heap pressure on ministers to explain how they plan to replace that electricity. Experts say the boom in electric cars will require much more zero-carbon electricity – but just one new nuclear power station is being built, Hinkley Point C, in Somerset.”

Meanwhile, the Times says that “British transport, construction and heavy industry will be told today to cut carbon emissions further as ministers get ready to set legally binding targets for the next decade”. [The link was not working at time of going to press.] And there has been continuing fallout following the appointment of former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to the UK’s board of trade. BBC News says shadow international development secretary Emily Thornberry said Mr Abbott was “the wrong” choice “on every level” and had “no experience of detailed trade negotiations, no understanding of Brexit, no belief in climate change, no concern for workers’ rights”. The i newspaper reports on the “tone deaf” appointment and John Rentoul in the Independent asks: “Is Boris Johnson trying to provoke a culture war by appointing Tony Abbott?”

MailOnline covers a new study published in Nature Communications which shows that the “world’s oceans are better at soaking up CO2 than most scientific models have previously found”. It adds: “Although emissions of CO2 are easily quantifiable, how much goes into the atmosphere and how much is absorbed by bodies of water is hard to calculate. Due to a previous oversight, the oceans may actually soak up an extra 0.9 petagrams of CO2, the same as 900 million metric tonnes. One petrol car averaging 9,000 miles a year, 40 miles to the gallon and 0.4kg of CO2 a mile will produce 408 kg of CO2 a year. Therefore, 900 million metric tonnes of CO2 equates to the same amount of CO2 emissions as approximately 2.2 billion cars…Previous estimates of flux have neglected to take into account temperature differences at the water’s surface compared to a few metres below. Researchers from the University of Exeter factored this into their calculations and found it made a significant impact on how much carbon is trapped in oceans.”

There has been widespread anger and condemnation across the comment pages at XR’s protest, particularly by the newspapers affected by the blockade. An editorial in the Sunday Telegraph says “this weekend witnessed an appalling attack on all our liberties”, adding: “It was nakedly partisan: every paper affected was centre-Right, none on the Left…XR is anti-reason, anti-dialogue. They have, in previous demonstrations, brought chaos to Britain’s transport network; their contempt for working people is self-evident. They claim to be concerned with fighting climate change, which means they should welcome this government’s drastic carbon emission plans, but in reality all of that rhetoric is window-dressing for their true purpose: a revolutionary, extremist movement set on overthrowing our society.” An editorial in today’s Daily Telegraph continues: “With a few notable exceptions, Labour’s response has been slow and half-hearted to what was by any measure a gratuitous attack on one of the fundamentals of a free country.” An editorial in the Sunday Times (not online) says “[XR]’s anti-democratic efforts will only convince the vast majority of people that this is a protest movement they want nothing to do with”. An editorial in today’s Daily Mail (not online) says the “climate mob makes a mockery of the law”. It adds: “Anyone questioning the [XR] credo, or arguing that decarbonising too quickly could devastate the economy and blight millions of lives, must be cancelled or bullied into silence.” An editorial in today’s Times says: “The challenge is now for Extinction Rebellion itself. It has won a large following of soft support: those concerned about the environment but hoping the law, governments and public opinion will move fast enough to change things. It has the qualified support of business, which has understood that the move away from pollution and fossil fuels will boost profits and reputations. It has been at the centre of global conferences and UN talks. But to a hard core, that is mere window-dressing: they would rather BP became a pariah than see it lead the move for cleaner energy. An alternative lifestyle is not the same as destroying capitalism. Some XR leaders understood this after the furious commuter reaction to blockading the London Underground last year. Extinction Rebellion is now in a civil war with itself, as the storm on Twitter shows. It needs to regain focus, kick out extremists and make the press an ally, not a target of political partisan attacks.” An editorial in today’s Sun says: “Police chiefs know that earnest climate campaigners in Extinction Rebellion are being ousted by dangerous anarchists who want to destroy our way of life. They should deal with them accordingly.” A day earlier, the Sun on Sunday editorial said: “The climate is only a pretext for this ragbag army of anarchists, whose real aim is to smash the system. Boris Johnson needs to act fast and outlaw this type of blockade immediately. The voice of Britain’s free press is too important to ever be silenced again.” And an editorial in the Independent says the protest was a “counterproductive way to secure more effective action on the climate emergency”

Meanwhile, there is a similar tone from many of the newspaper columnists. In the Sunday Times, Robert Colvile writes: “These activists can’t be reasoned or bargained with because they’ve moved beyond reason: everything is tainted and everything must be purged. Yet their campaign is increasingly self-defeating. Opinion research from Stonehaven, a leading consultancy, shows clearly that the left in general and Extinction Rebellion in particular have turned the environment into just another front in the Brexit culture war. For working-class leave voters, Greta Thunberg is as much a polarising, off-putting figure as Nigel Farage is for middle-class remainers. And when ‘red wall’ voters see the demonstrators on television, they don’t admire their courage – they wonder how on earth they were able to get the time off work.” In the Sunday Telegraph, Douglas Murray says: “What we are facing here are fanatics: members of an apocalyptic, end-times cult.  A cult dedicated to immiserating our society and intimidating anybody who stands in their way. It is high time that they were stopped.” In the Daily Express, Leo McKinstry (not online) says these “mob tactic expose how these fanatics hate our democracy”. In today’s Daily Mail, climate sceptic columnist Dominic Lawson says: “Free speech, fake science – and why we must take the fight to the climate zealots.” In the same edition of the Daily Mail, Stephen Glover writes: “We should beware of laws aimed at Extinction Rebellion – and certainly avoid treating it as a criminal organisation. Let’s use existing legislation, which safeguards free speech on the one hand, and doesn’t allow bullies to destroy livelihoods on the other.” In the Sunday Telegraph, Janet Daly asks: “How did we get here? Is this a monumental failure of education? Have we managed to produce a generation – or at least a notable proportion of a generation – who know absolutely nothing about what democracy entails?” In the Sun on Sunday, Tony Parsons writes: “How dare they? I reckon that will be the reaction of millions to the preening, planet-polluting morons of Extinction Rebellion who, in the early hours yesterday, attempted to silence free speech in this country.” In the Sun, Trevor Kavanagh argues: “We know Extinction Rebellion has been infiltrated by anti-democracy left-wing extremists because the group’s absurdly shocked founders have just told us so. If we know, [Keir] Starmer knows. These Trots, Marxists and assorted ratbags are bent on bringing down Britain’s elected government and 300 years of free expression that truly brave campaigners fought and died for.” In the edition of the Sun that got disrupted, Sir David Attenborough had written: “I don’t think it is sensible politics to break the law. If you are any good at all, some of your demands will be met and then you will be demanding people abide by those new laws. You can’t have it both ways.” In the Daily Telegraph, Ian Austin says that “the police response to Extinction Rebellion’s protest was pathetic”. The Times letters page carries the reaction from its readers. And Politico has a feature by Sara Stefanini on how “Extinction Rebellion’s hometown pushes the radical into the mainstream”. Meanwhile, before the newspaper protest, the Evening Standard last Friday carried a comment piece by Gail Bradbook, one of XR’s founders.

A Financial Times “Big Read” by metals and mining correspondent Henry Sanderson explores plans to produce lithium in Cornwall, southwest England, to supply growing demand for electric vehicle batteries. The piece tracks a retired investment banker who hopes to use newer extraction techniques to extract the metal and says this could make Cornish lithium more environmentally friendly than that from Chile, Argentina or Australia, according to the FT. The paper adds: “The question is whether Cornwall’s resources are big enough to sustain a competitive low-cost lithium industry on the scale needed to meet the UK’s expected demand for batteries. A rival company, British Lithium, is also digging for the battery metal and hopes to open a conventional open-pit mine in St Austell in 2023.” A piece in the Times runs under the headline: “The dirty secret behind your ‘green’ electric car.” It reports the growing demand for nickel for electric car batteries “despite the pollution that production can cause”. The piece also notes that batteries account for just 7% of nickel demand today, potentially climbing to 20% by 2030. An article for Axios says the “world’s transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles will require unprecedented amounts of copper”. It adds that this could involve the development of new mines “that may harm vulnerable species and ecosystems”. [Carbon Brief looked at six key metals for the low-carbon transition in 2018.] An article in the Guardian meanwhile reports that the higher price of electric vehicles is deterring consumers from buying them, according to a survey from industry trade group the SMMT.

Separately, writing in the Daily Telegraph, transport secretary Grant Shapps defends his government’s £27bn plan to upgrade roads but adds: “None of this means ignoring the increasingly vital role of walking and cycling, which the covid pandemic has thrust up the priority list.” Finally, a comment piece from Financial Times city editor Jonathan Ford says renewables have “significant hidden expenses” due to the need for grid reinforcement and backup supplies. Ford points to recent figures published by the UK government and covered at the time by Carbon Brief.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California could see higher chances of extreme heat stress as the climate warms, a study finds. The Coachella region is also likely to see a shortening of the “snowbird” season – the warm and dry winter months that attract seasonal visitors from Canada and northern US states, according to the results. The authors say: “Global warming may adversely impact the snowbird season and other tourist attractions through rising temperatures.”

Around 14% of Natural World Heritage Sites saw their shorelines decrease from the 1980s to today, a study says. The main drivers of shoreline change were natural processes and human land use and management, such as measures to protect coral reefs from rising temperatures, the study says. “Globally, the effects of contemporary sea-level rise are not 54 apparent for coastal NWHS, but it is a major concern for the future reinforcing the shoreline dynamics already being observed due to other drivers.”