Hurricane Melissa has made landfall as a category 5 hurricane in Jamaica, the island’s strongest storm in its 174-year record and one of the worst Atlantic hurricanes in history, reports the Associated Press. The newswire says that floodwaters “trapped families in their homes”, while “winds tore roofs off buildings and boulders tumbled onto roads”. Officials have said that it is still “too early to talk about the extent of the damage”, AP adds. It quotes prime minister Andrew Holness saying: “There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5. The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge.” The Washington Post says that “local officials noted that it was not yet possible to offer damage assessments and that there was no available information about fatalities from the storm”. It adds that Melissa is tied for the “strongest hurricane landfall on record in the Atlantic basin by both pressure and wind speed”, surpassing the intensity of Katrina in 2005. The hurricane is covered widely around the world, including UK frontpages such as the i paper, Metro, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph and Guardian. 

BBC News reports that Melissa made landfall on Tuesday afternoon local time in south-western Jamaica near the town of New Hope with wind speeds of 185mph (295km/h), according to the US National Hurricane Center. It continues: “Originally a Category 5 storm, it was downgraded to Category 3 after it made landfall and swept across the island. Officials said it would continue to decrease in intensity, but remain extremely dangerous as it moves towards Cuba and then the Bahamas.” Reuters reports that Melissa made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in Cuba on Wednesday morning. Bloomberg explains in more detail why “it will take hours – if not days – to assess the full scope of the damage” from the storm. Ahead of the hurricane, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned that it could impact 1.5 million people, Agence France-Presse reports. The Financial Times says that “investors are expecting to pay as much as $150m to Jamaica, as the severity of Hurricane Melissa triggers ‘catastrophe bond’ insurance to help the country to recover”.

New Scientist says that “there is virtually no doubt that global warming has made Hurricane Melissa as strong as it is”. It continues: “The warm waters that fuelled its intensification were 500 to 700 times more likely as a result of climate change, according to initial estimates by Daniel Gilford and his colleagues at Climate Central, a US non-profit organisation.” The Economist says that “warmer seas fuel stronger hurricanes – around the Caribbean, sea-surface temperatures are 1.4C above average for this time of year”. Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami, tells BBC News: “The ocean is warmer and the atmosphere is warmer and moister because of [climate change]. So it tips the scale in favour of things like rapid intensification [where wind speeds increase very quickly], higher peak intensity, and increased rainfall.”

In its coverage, the New York Times says that “leaders in the Caribbean and from vulnerable island states around the world have been repeating for years” that the “world’s poorest countries will suffer the most from climate change despite being least responsible for it”. It continues: “They have been asking the world’s rich countries, whose greenhouse gas emissions over generations have fueled warmer seas and bigger storms, to help them prepare. With Hurricane Melissa scouring Jamaica with vicious intensity before setting its sights on Cuba and the Bahamas, it is likely that many of the affected countries will once again be overwhelmed by the expense of recovery.”

Thousands of people in Vietnam have been evacuated after record rainfall of more than one metre in 24 hours submerged the central city of Hue, reports AFP. It continues: “Heavy rain has inundated Vietnam’s central coastal region since the weekend, closing schools and flooding the former imperial city of Hue, a Unesco world heritage site. More than 8,600 people in four central provinces were evacuated to schools and other public buildings since Saturday due to risks from severe flooding and landslides, according to the environment ministry.” The Associated Press says that “Vietnam is among the most flood-prone countries worldwide with nearly half its population living in areas of risk”. It continues: “Global warming is making tropical storms stronger and wetter, according to experts, because warmer oceans provide them with more fuel, driving more intense winds, heavier rainfall and shifting precipitation patterns across East Asia.”

Climate change is continuing to devastate people’s health and policy failures are leading to “millions” of avoidable deaths each year, according to the 2025 Lancet Countdown report, which is covered by AFP. The ninth edition of the report on the links between climate change and human health says that “heatwaves, extreme drought and deadly wildfire smoke are just some of the climate-related health hazards that have reached record levels of harm”, according to Inside Climate News. According to the publication, Marina Romanello, biomedical scientist and executive director of the Lancet Countdown, told a press briefing: “The delays in delivering climate action that we are seeing so far are increasingly costing lives and costing livelihoods. We’re seeing millions of deaths that are occurring needlessly every year because of our persistent fossil fuel dependence, because of our delay in mitigating climate change and our delays in adaptation to climate change.” The Guardian notes that the report says that “rising global heat is now killing one person every minute around the world”. Each year, this equates to nearly 550,000 people, Bloomberg adds.

India’s media also zooms in on the Lancet report’s findings to see what they mean for the region. According to the report, people in India experienced nearly 20 heatwave days on average in 2024, of which a third “would not have occurred without climate change”, MoneyControl reports. It adds that heat exposure last year “led to the loss of 247bn potential labour hours, the highest ever”, resulting in a “potential income loss of $194bn in 2024”. The agriculture sector “bore the brunt with 66% of losses, while construction accounted for 20%”, the Hindustan Times writes, with productive hours lost to heat rising 124% compared to the 1990s. Speaking to the Indian Express, Dr Soumya Swaminathan – former chief scientist at the World Health Organisation – says that only a few states “officially recognise” heat as a “disaster”, adding that “[e]xpanding this recognition nationwide is essential to prevent deaths, especially during peak summer months”. 

MORE ON INDIA

• While the “shortfall [of new national climate pledges] is particularly stark among the world’s largest polluters”, the Hindustan Times reports that India is “awaiting cabinet approval” to update its own pledge.
• India’s electricity demand rose by 12% in October, the Economic Times reports, with solar power generation growing by 18% and wind “nearly doubling” in a “surge” that reduced dependence on “costlier coal-based generation”.
• A new Ember report finds that building coal “beyond the current pipeline” is “neither necessary nor economical” for India if it is to meet its 2031-32 renewable energy targets, per another Economic Times article.
• According to the Washington Post, Indian government officials “drafted and pushed through” a proposal to steer $3.9bn from state-run Life Insurance Corporation – “charged with underwriting life insurance for poor and rural citizens” – to the Adani Group’s energy, port and power transmission businesses.
• A Scroll.in investigation finds that “coral [reefs] are completely missing” from government maps of the Great Nicobar island. 

Xinhua covers a speech by Chinese president Xi Jinping where he “explained” the outcomes of a recent meeting of top policymakers to determine China’s “key tasks” and government “recommendations” for the nation’s “15th five-year plan” (2026-2030). Xi emphasised the “leading role of technological innovation” in China’s development over the next five years and called for “accelerating the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development”. Xi also noted that “developing new productive forces requires certain endowment conditions and must fully consider practical feasibility”, calling on local officials to avoid a “rush” to develop certain projects, according to the agency.

The recommendations for the next five-year plan are published in full by Xinhua and include that, by 2030, China’s target to peak carbon emissions “will be achieved as scheduled”, “green production and lifestyles will be fundamentally established” and the “first stages” of a “low-carbon, safe and efficient” energy system will be established. The recommendations note that China will “pursue a multi-energy approach integrating wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear”, “implement dual control of carbon” and “promote peaking coal and oil consumption”, while also “enhancing clean and efficient utilisation of fossil fuels”. The country will also accelerate development of “strategic emerging industries such as new energy” and “enhance the capacity to respond to climate change, especially extreme weather events”, says the state-controlled newswire.

In response, China’s National Energy Administration has said it will “focus on major tasks such as preliminarily establishing a…low-carbon, safe and efficient new energy system and building China into an energy powerhouse under the 15th five-year plan”, BJX News reports. Lin Weibin, director at the China Energy Research Society, tells National Business Daily that China must both “vigorously develop renewable energy sources” and make “greater efforts…to promote the clean utilisation of fossil fuels” under the 15th five-year plan. 

MORE ON CHINA

• China has upgraded its free trade pact with ASEAN, which now “includes vows to lower trade barriers and facilitate the green economy”, reports Bloomberg. 
• EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra has urged China to “spend more to boost global climate finance” due to its “increasing economic clout”, says Euractiv.
• China’s legislature is overseeing revisions to the environmental code, which now “curb…excessive fines for minor violations” of anti-pollution regulations, Caixin says.
• According to a mining association, China’s coal reserves may grow by 12bn tonnes, CCTV reports. Reuters says that “China’s curbs on coal production could tighten further toward the end of 2025, making a rebound in output…unlikely”.
• Institute for Global Decarbonisation Progress co-founder Hu Min argues in a commentary in Caixin that China’s smaller climate actions are “some of the most encouraging signals from any major emitter”, even if they do not “grab headlines”.
• China is “confident that ample coal and gas supplies” and an “abundance of renewables” means it will avoid winter power shortages, Bloomberg says.

Financial Times columnist Pilita Clark writes about companies that allow people with renewables at home, such as rooftop solar, to sell excess power back to the grid. She says: “This new class of energy tech entrepreneurs is showing how electricity can become more affordable precisely because of the renewables, batteries and electric cars that net-zero efforts drive…Why would any politician want to throttle the nascent tech that could make electricity more affordable and abundant for millions of people, just because it’s also green?”

MORE COMMENT

• A “big read” in the FT explores the “global boom in solar – with or without the US”.
• Prof Rupert Read, head of the Climate Majority Project advocacy group, writes for DeSmog on “why we need to talk about adaptation”.
• Dialogue Earth examines whether Latin America can “finally present a united front” at COP30 in Brazil.
• An editorial in Sydney Morning Herald discusses public discontent over an update to the website of Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.
• The Daily Telegraph has a frontpage story on documents indicating the government have “revised down” the “predicted efficiency of wind turbines”, which features inaccurate claims from climate sceptic “independent analyst” Kathryn Porter and former Conservative energy secretary (and recently converted net-zero-sceptic) Claire Coutinho.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Daisy Dunne, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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