Climate change will cost the US economy billions of dollars by the end of the century, warns a new report compiled from 13 government agencies and departments. The 4th National Climate Assessment concludes that lives and property are already at risk in the US due to climate change, Axios reports. Al Jazeera summarises the findings: “global warming would disproportionately hurt the poor, broadly undermine human health, damage infrastructure, limit the availability of water, alter coastlines, and boost costs in industries from farming, to fisheries and energy production”. The report suggests that climate change could remove up to a tenth off US GDP by the end of the century. The Guardiandescribes the assessment as representing the “most comprehensive and sobering analysis yet of the dangers posed to the US by rising temperatures”. However, the report also adds that: “future risks from climate change depend primarily on decisions made today”. The warning is at odds with the Trump administration’s fossil fuels agenda, BBC News notes. As such, “the administration is widely expected to discount or ignore the report’s detailed findings of the economic strain caused by climate change, even as it continues to cut environmental regulations”, the New York Times writes. Indeed, “scientists who worked on the report said their research was not watered down but claimed the release was timed to bury the findings during the holiday season”, the Guardian explains, in a separate article. While a former energy and climate aide to Obama claimed that Trump was “scared” of the findings, Al Gore accused Trump of trying to “bury” the findings, the Hill reports. Bernie Sanders described the assessment as “very alarming”, says a separate article in the Hill. “What Congress has got to do is take Trump on, take the fossil fuel industry on and transform our system to sustainable energy”, Sanders said in an interview on CBS. CNN, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Reuters and InsideClimate News also have the story, while the New York Times has taken an in-depth look at the assessment.

There is early coverage of a new set of climate change projections for the UK, which are due to be launched today. “The UK Climate Projections 2018 report will say that the heatwave conditions experienced across Britain this year could become the norm,” reports the Daily Telegraph, with average summer temperatures as much as 5C warmer by the 2070s. Environment Secretary Michael Gove will launch “UKCP18” with a speech at the Science Museum this morning, says the Times. He will say that “it is clear that the planet and its weather patterns are changing before our eyes. We know, more than ever before, the urgency of acting. These projections will give us an invaluable tool to assess the nature and scale of the challenge we face and take decisions accordingly”. The Sunday Times managed to get hold of a leaked copy of the UKCP18 report, and led with the projections of sea level rise that could “leave 100,000 coastal properties at risk from wave erosion, with another 100,000 sited on seaside cliffs at risk from landslips” by 2100. The Mirror followed up on the Sunday Times story.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has reached its highest rate in a decade, according to data from the Brazilian government, BBC News reports. Around 7,900 sq km was destroyed between August 2017 and July 2018 – an area “roughly five times the size of London”, and the biggest area of forest cleared since 2008. Environment Minister Edson Duarte blamed the rise on illegal logging. Environmentalists are concerned that the deforestation will become more acute when Jair Bolsonaro becomes president in January, the Guardianadds.

Plans to develop a new opencast coal mine near near Druridge Bay in northeastern England are back on track, Reuters reports. The UK’s Banks Mining won a high court challenge to the government’s decision to reject its application, the company said on Friday. Sajid Javid – the local government minister at the time – originally rejected the application in March, saying the proposal “could hamper the country’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curb climate change”, Reuters explains. But the judge has concluded that Javid failed to explain “how a proposal needed for the country’s energy could be refused” unless there was firm evidence the energy gap would be filled by renewables or low carbon sources, writes Chronicle Live. The project would see three million tonnes of coal, sandstone and fireclay extracted from the site over seven years, BBC News says. BusinessGreen also has the story.

Wealthy nations are more than $20bn short of their 2020 target to help poorer countries deal with climate change, according to a new UN report seen by the Financial Times. $55bn of climate-related aid was donated in 2016, rising to $70bn if private capital is included. “But both figures fall short of the $100bn per year that rich countries have been promising poorer countries for nearly a decade”, the FT says. Michal Kurtyka, the Polish minister presiding over the international climate summit in Katowice next month, warned that funding will be a contentious issue. “There is a very big debate around the issue of mobilisation of funding,” he commented. Axios and Reuters also cover the story.

Reuters reports that a senior Chinese government official has said that China “still needs to do a lot of work” before it can fully launch its long-awaited nationwide carbon emissions trading scheme, which is already running behind schedule. Reuters adds: “The country had aimed to replace the regional pilots with a nationwide emissions trading scheme (ETS) by 2017, but it still needs to ensure it has the required legal and technological infrastructure in place.” Earlier this year, Carbon Brief published a detailed Q&A about China’s ETS.

Elsewhere, Reuters reports that China’s top climate envoy has said that China will work to achieve its existing greenhouse gas targets and strive to do better as the challenges of climate change become more urgent. Xie Zhenhua told reporters: “I believe the promises we make will be 100% completed and we will strive to do better”. China has pledged to halt its rise in emissions by “around 2030”.

Fifty Conservative MPs have added their names to a letter calling on the UK’s prime minister to adopt an “ambitious” target of cutting carbon emissions to net zero before 2050, the Guardian reports. The letter to Theresa May suggests that a stronger long-term goal will cut energy bills, improve air quality and protect British jobs, as well as demonstrating international leadership on climate change. The cross-party letter now has the backing of more than 200 Parliamentarians, including more than 150 MPs and almost 50 members of the House of Lords, BusinessGreen explains. The UK is currently committed to cutting emissions by 80% by 2050.

A record absence of ice after “freak warm spells” is making it harder for pregnant polar bears to find birthing dens, the Guardian reports. Scientists fear that the local extinction of a species may be approaching faster than forecast for the most affected populations. The waters around Svalbard have a little over half the average area of ice for this time of year.

(ICAO) are “clubs that protect producer interests”. With the IMO, the editorial says that “at least 17 countries have assigned their voting rights to flag registries operated by private firms…that adds up to about a tenth of delegates”. It continues: “Producer interests are protected…through a spectacular lack of transparency. The agenda of the IMO’s council…in London is available only to those with a password. Journalists are forbidden to report what delegates say or how they vote…Such swampiness matters. The IMO and the ICAO are responsible for limiting emissions from ships and planes, which were excluded from the Paris climate deal. Green groups say, for instance, that the ICAO’s new “Corsia” rules on carbon offsets could cause an increase in carbon emissions.”

An editorial in the Irish Times says that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s acceptance of the need for “sustained and clearly-identified carbon tax increases” over the next decade is a “positive development”. It adds: “There are strong indications that Irish citizens are supportive of collective action on climate change, and equally compelling evidence of political inaction. The all-party approach could help to reverse this. The carbon tax initiative should be the first step in a united political response.”

Somini Sengupta, the New York Times’s international climate reporter, examines why “coal shows no sign of disappearing”, three years after the Paris Agreement. Coal is “hard to quit”, she says, because “powerful companies, backed by powerful governments, often in the form of subsidies, are in a rush to grow their markets before it is too late. Banks still profit from it. Big national electricity grids were designed for it.” She continues: “Coal plants can be a surefire way for politicians to deliver cheap electricity — and retain their own power”.

Climate change “might be to blame” for an “unexpectedly high rate of miscarriage” along the eastern coast of Bangladesh. A feature in BBC News has gone “into these communities to find out more”. Scientists believe that the high rate of miscarriage found in the area “is to do with the amount of salt in the water the women drink – the increase of which is caused by climate change”, journalist Susannah Savage explains. “These Bangladeshi families have no idea of the health risk from the water they are drinking, and even if they did, they have little choice”, she writes.

Climate change could affect the distribution of venomous snakes and the patterns of snakebite risk in Mozambique, a new study suggests. Using “ecological niche” models, the researchers modelled current and future distribution of all 13 dangerous snake species found in Mozambique, and compared this to data on human population density. The findings suggest a “considerable future reduction in climatically suitable area” for nine out of 13 snake species, the authors say, but a large increase in snakebite risk – affecting most areas in central and southern regions of the country.