Several titles have published previews of this week’s meeting in South Korea of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as it finalises its latest report which is scheduled to be released next weekend. BBC News says: “It is likely to be the most critical and controversial report on climate change in recent years. Leading scientists are meeting in South Korea this week to see if global temperatures can be kept from rising by more than 1.5C this century…After a week of deliberations in the city of Incheon, the researchers’ new report is likely to say that keeping below this limit will require urgent and dramatic action from governments and individuals alike. One scientist told BBC News that our lives would never be the same if the world changed course to stay under 1.5C.” Agence-France Presse says that “diplomats gathering in South Korea will find themselves in the awkward position of vetting and validating a major UN scientific report that underscores the failure of their governments to take stronger action on climate”. AFP focuses, in particular, on the possible influence of the Trump administration on the report’s “summary for policymakers”. Bloomberg says that “a panel of the world’s top climate scientists is preparing to recommend much deeper cuts in fossil-fuel pollution than currently suggested as a pathway to stave off a dangerous increase in global temperatures”. India’s Business Standard claims to have seen the US submission to the IPCC: “It has asked for more than a hundred dilutions, alterations and deletions.” Separately, Climate Home News reports that Poland, which will host this year’s UN climate summit, “calls on scientists from the UN climate science panel to ‘explore and quantify’ the role of forests in storing carbon in ‘achieving a balance’ with greenhouse gas pollution.”

The Washington Post has an exclusive – which has been picked up by many other outlets over the weekend – showing that, “last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous seven degrees [Fahrenheit] by the end of this century.” It adds: “But the administration did not offer this dire forecast, premised on the idea that the world will fail to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed. The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Trump’s decision to freeze federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.” The Financial Times is among the publications following up on the story. Separately, the New York Times reports that the “Trump administration has completed a detailed legal proposal to dramatically weaken a major environmental regulation covering mercury, a toxic chemical emitted from coal-burning power plants, according to a person who has seen the document but is not authorised to speak publicly about it.” The Washington Post has picked up the story. Meanwhile, NBC News has a feature about Bob Inglis, the Republican who is currently touring the US in his attempt to “convert his party” on climate change. He is “doubling down on the beliefs that cost him his seat in Congress: climate change is real, and Republicans must act”.

The Guardian reports that, according to a briefing paper by the Expert Finance Working Group on Small Reactors, the backers of mini nuclear power stations have asked for billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to build their first UK projects. The working group was appointed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It urged the government in August to put in place a framework to help bring the smaller plants to market. The document shows that some firms have been calling for as much as £3.6bn to fund construction costs. The Guardian adds: “Companies also wanted up to £480m of public money to help steer their reactor designs through the regulatory approval process, which is a cost usually paid by nuclear companies.” In a separate story for the Guardian, Adam Vaughan reports that the National Trust and 18 other conservation groups have urged ministers to rule out burying nuclear waste below national parks as fears grow that the Lake District is being eyed as a potential site. And another Guardian story reports that activists have called for a halt to “nuclear mud” dumping off Wales.

An editorial in the Guardian says the “world is failing to combat the threat of climate change”. It continues: “Slowing the rise in temperature means taking steps towards decarbonisation that are more dramatic than anything achieved so far, such as the eradication of emissions from cars and air travel. Activists are hugely important in raising public awareness. So it was disappointing that three environmental activists were sentenced to between 15 and 16 months in jail for their part in a protest against fracking in Lancashire. This punishment, for causing a public nuisance, is unduly harsh and disproportionate…We do not advocate breaking the law. But when the news on climate change is so alarming, the commitment of green activists around the world is one reason for hope.”

Claire Perry, the UK’s energy and clean growth minister writes in the House Magazine that “Britain is leading the world in cutting carbon emissions to tackle climate change while boosting economic growth”. She adds: “It has been 10 years since parliament came together to pass the Climate Change Act, with strong cross-party support, binding the UK to ambitious reductions in carbon emissions by 2050…Now, after one of the hottest summers on record when we have all experienced first-hand the changing climate, the wisdom of those who called us to action a decade ago is sinking in.”

If California had a repeat of its 2012-16 drought, but 30 years later higher global temperatures would mean it would be “much worse than its historical counterpart”, a new study says. Using model simulations, the researchers assessed the impacts if similar dynamical conditions to the 2012-16 drought occurred in 2042-46. Overall, the midcentury drought would have many more extreme heat days, record‐low snowpack, increased soil drying, and record‐high forest loss, the findings show. The authors caution that an “extensive effort…must now be invested on the part of California’s residents, water managers, policymakers, and the broader stakeholder community to prepare for the next big drought”.

A warming climate will increase the energy demands for refrigeration in the US food and farming industries, a new study suggests. Using a case study of the Michigan chip-processing potato industry – the state being the largest producer of chipped potatoes in the US – the researchers simulate post-harvest potato storage for the 21st century. The finding indicate increasing future demand for ventilation and/or refrigeration immediately after harvest and again in spring and early summer – by as much as 35 days by the end of the century. This “provides an example of the potentially large effects of climate change on the storage conditions for agricultural commodities”, the authors conclude.