A new report warns that the world has reached its first climate “tipping point” as global warming pushes warm-water coral reefs towards an irreversible decline, says the Press Association. The report, co-authored by more than 160 scientists in 23 countries, “found that warm-water coral reefs…are already passing their thermal tipping point”, the newswire explains: “The scientists put this threshold at 1.2C warming above pre-industrial levels, but the world has now hit 1.4C, meaning the impacts of passing the tipping point are under way.” The New Scientist quotes lead author Prof Tim Lenton, who says: “We’ve taken a sample of the 1.5C world and we have seen the consequences…A majority of coral reefs are under risk of extensive dieback [or bleaching] and tipping into the alternative seaweed-dominated, algal-covered state.” 

The Guardian quotes Prof Peter Mumby, a leading coral reef scientist, who says he was worried society would “give up on coral reefs” if people think they can no longer be saved. The newspaper adds that Mumby “said he accepted reefs were in decline, but there was emerging evidence corals could adapt with some reefs remaining viable even at 2C of global heating”. The report also warns the world is “on the brink” of reaching other tipping points, including the dieback of the Amazon and the collapse of major ocean currents and the loss of ice sheets, the Guardian notes. There is further coverage in Reuters, Time and the Daily Mail, while Carbon Brief covered the scientific conference for the Global Tipping Points group earlier this year.

Scientists have warned that New Zealand’s decision to set a less ambitious methane emissions reduction target sets a worrying precedent, reports Bloomberg. The government announced yesterday that it was weakening its 2050 target to reduce methane emissions from livestock and other farm sources to a 14-24% cut from 2017 levels, down from 24-47%, the newswire explains: “The new target represents a ‘no-additional-warming’ approach that seeks to prevent methane from contributing any further to global warming rather than to reduce its impact, says James Renwick, professor of physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington, adding it is ‘a major step backwards in ambition and in climate action’.” Greenpeace’s New Zealand office says the policy shift “amounts to full-blown climate denial”, reports Agence France-Presse. [For more on assessing methane emissions in terms of “no additional warming”, see Carbon Brief’s Q&A.] 

A second Bloomberg article quotes agriculture minister Todd McClay, who sys the government has “accepted a range of advice and worked closely with industry to agree a practical target that protects food production whilst substantially reducing New Zealand’s farm emissions”. The target follows recommendations from the “methane science review”, released last year, the outset says. The government has also ruled out a tax on methane from farming, saying reductions will instead come through partnerships with industry and processor incentives, the article adds. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) quotes climate change minister Simon Watts, who said it was “really, really important…to provide certainty to our agricultural sector”, adding that the “adjustment” to the target was “fair and pragmatic”. Reuters also has the story, while another RNZ article reports that “farmers have welcomed” the new target.

The US has moved to cancel what would have been the largest solar project in North America, reports the Financial Times, “as the Trump administration expands its attack on the embattled renewable energy industry”. The newspaper continues: “Late on Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management scrapped approval for Esmeralda 7, a 6.2 gigawatt project that could have powered nearly 2m homes. It had begun the permitting process under the Biden administration.” The seven solar farms “would have covered about 62,300 acres [25,200 hectares] of federal lands in the Nevada desert north-west of Las Vegas”, the article adds. Industry observers predict that Esmeralda 7 “won’t be the last major project in the pipeline to be pulled”, says Politico. The Guardian notes that the interior department “appeared to leave open the possibility that at least parts of the project could be resubmitted for review”. The New York Times, Bloomberg and E&E News also have the story.

MORE ON US

• On Friday, the US threatened to use visa restrictions and sanctions to retaliate against nations that vote in favour of the International Maritime Organization’s shipping carbon tax, reports Reuters.
• The Trump administration has accelerated approvals of oil and gas drilling permits since it took office, Politico analysis shows.
• A bipartisan group of senators is planning to take a delegation to COP30 next month, says E&E News, “even as the Trump administration’s presence remains doubtful”.
• “Well-timed rains” near the peak fire season may have helped “blunt the worst” of wildfires in the US west in 2025, says the Washington Post.

At least 44 people have died in Mexico after torrential rains from tropical storms Priscilla and Raymond triggered landslides and flooding, reports Reuters. According to Le Monde: “Mexico’s civil defense authorities reported intense rainfall in 31 of 32 states, causing rivers to overflow, flooding entire villages, triggering landslides and collapsing roads and bridges. The central state of Hidalgo has been among the worst-affected areas, with authorities there reporting at least 22 dead, 1,000 homes damaged and 90 communities inaccessible to rescuers.” The intense rainfall since Thursday was “caused by a seasonal shift and cloud formation as warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico rises to the mountaintops”, the article adds. BBC News reports that “3,300 naval troops are helping with evacuations as well as clearing up the aftereffects of the floods”.

One of China’s largest turbine makers has announced plans to invest up to £1.5bn in a new factory in Scotland, reports the Financial Times, which describes the move as a “test of the UK government’s appetite for investment from Chinese companies”. Ming Yang, a privately owned firm, said it wants to build a factory to serve offshore wind projects in the UK, Europe and some other markets, with its preferred location being Ardersier Port near Inverness, the newspaper explains: “The company on Friday confirmed the plans were ‘subject to final approvals from the UK government’, which has come under pressure from some MPs and US officials to reject the proposed investment due to concerns about China’s involvement in critical national infrastructure.” Ming Yang said the project would create up to 1,500 jobs, with the first production taking place by late 2028, notes BBC News. The Press Association and Scotsman also have the story.

MORE ON UK

• Energy companies have injected green hydrogen into the UK gas grid and used the “low-carbon gas” to generate electricity, in what the Guardian calls a “landmark development for the UK’s climate ambitions”.
• Greenpeace is threatening to sue the Crown Estate over its monopoly ownership of the seabed, which is “pushing up the costs of offshore wind power”, reports the Financial Times.
• The Sunday Times reports on the “bitter cabinet division” that has opened up over whether a site on Teesside should be used for “AI datacentres or a net zero-linked hydrogen plant”.
• A developer behind the UK’s largest solar farm offered landowners up to £50,000 on condition that they did not object to its plans, reports the Daily Telegraph. The firm said the condition “should not have been included” and has corrected the offer.
• A council leader for the hard-right, populist Reform UK party has said he will “lie down in front” of “net-zero bulldozers” used for renewables projects in Lincolnshire, reports the Daily Telegraph.
• Despite his vocal criticisms of net-zero, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice has a “15-year business record of support for sustainability and green energy initiatives”, reports the Guardian.

Prices of Chinese carbon credits have dropped to the “lowest level” in more than two years as a result of a “persistent oversupply” and weaker demand amid “policy shifts and softer emissions thresholds aimed at expanding the scope of its carbon market”, reports Bloomberg. Since the new policy was issued last year, emitters have faced “stricter limits on carrying over unused permits from previous compliance periods”, prompting many to sell near to the end of the year. China’s carbon prices have fallen by almost 40% since the start of this year, the outlet adds.

MORE ON CHINA

• The Financial Times assesses China’s “rising dominance as the world’s first significant ‘electrostate’”, saying that the shift not only reduces the country’s reliance on imported fossil fuels, but also allows many developing countries to build industries around “cheaper power supplies”.
• Canada is seeking to explore “pragmatic cooperation in energy, clean technology and the green transition” with China amid “global climate challenges”, China Daily reports.
• The South China Morning Post reports that China’s move to further tighten export restrictions on rare-earth minerals is worrying the EU. Meanwhile, Bloomberg says that Beijing’s new policy also has an impact on the global battery supply chain, which is “vital to the energy transition”.
• The utilisation rate of wind power and solar power in China was 96.6% and 96.4% in August, respectively, reports energy news outlet CPNN.
• An article by the New York Times says that China is building an “enormous network of clean-energy industries on the Tibetan Plateau”, to produce “low-cost, renewable energy” that can meet all of the power demands of the plateau.
• The New York Times also looks at how China “powers its electric cars and high-speed trains”.

Imports of liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) delivered by ship to Germany have reached a “record level”, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). According to the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), LNG imports from January through to September totalled around 74 terawatt hours (TWh), surpassing 2024’s annual total of 69TWh. LNG’s share of Germany’s total gas imports has also risen significantly, adds the outlet. One key reason is that on 1 January 2025, transport contracts for Russian gas to Austria expired. As a result, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and parts of Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia are now supplied via Germany. Following Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the German government accelerated the construction of LNG terminals along the North and Baltic Seas to reduce reliance on Russian gas, explains the outlet. Der Spiegel notes that, previously, the expansion of LNG infrastructure hah been facing strong local opposition and the terminals were “barely used”, as Germany mainly imported Norwegian gas through North Sea pipelines.

MORE ON GERMANY  

• Hamburg citizens have voted for stricter climate targets in a referendum, moving the city’s climate neutrality goal forward to 2040, with annual interim targets to monitor progress, reports Der Spiegel.
• German chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing to soften the EU’s 2035 ban on new combustion-engine cars, notes Clean Energy Wire.
• Deutsche Welle reports that German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier has highlighted global hunger in a speech, citing wars and climate change as major causes.

Writing for the Financial Times, John Gummer – a Conservative peer, former environment secretary and former chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – says that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s plan to scrap the UK Climate Change Act “has upended 17 years of a consensus that enabled Britain to compete and made growth possible”. He notes that the legislation, “originally written by Conservatives”, was “neither a left-wing conceit nor a green crusade, but a cross-party recognition of a simple truth: climate change threatens us all”. Badenoch is “at odds with predecessors dating back to Margaret Thatcher, who went to the UN to demand action on climate change”, says Gummer, concluding: “She is seeking to undo a great Conservative achievement – the end of expensive coal, the halving of emissions and leading the world’s fight against climate change.” [See Carbon Brief for more on the Climate Change Act, the UK’s coal phaseout and how emissions have halved since 1990.]

MORE IN COMMENT

• Francesco Grillo, director of the thinktank Vision, writes in the Guardian that “Europe and Brazil have a rare opportunity, unimpeded by the US, to make a success of COP30”.
• Andrew Warren, chair of the British Energy Efficiency Federation, writes in Energy in Buildings & Industry magazine that energy efficiency has “contributed enormously this century” and “can contribute far more”, but “only just so long as doctrinaire, reactionary politics doesn’t deliberately hinder progress”. 
• Commenting on the warning from Ineos chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe of job losses in the chemicals industry, Times Radio business presenter Dominic O’Connell writes in the Times that “net-zero is a hit with voters, but job cuts may dent its popularity”.
• In the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph, associate editor Camilla Tominey criticises David Cameron and George Osborne, former Conservative prime minister and chancellor, respectively, for “leading Britain’s participation in the Paris Agreement which is now partly blamed for Europe’s sky-high energy bills”. [Expensive gas is the main driver of high energy prices.]
• Also in the Daily Telegraph, senior feature writer and columnist Ed Cumming says that “Labour’s manifesto pledge not to explore new oil and gas fields is costing the country dear”.
• The Sun publishes yet another editorial attacking energy secretary Ed Miliband, referencing a news story on the promotion of grants for heat pumps.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Robert McSweeney, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Wanyuan Song. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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