The eastern US is facing a severe “heat dome” that brought “extensive triple digit heat, broken temperature records and oppressive humidity” yesterday, AP reports. Heat warnings were in place for 150 million people yesterday, the newswire continues, adding: “The dangerous heat sent people to the hospital, delayed Amtrak trains and caused utilities to urge customers to conserve power.” The New York Times reports that temperatures reached 99F [37C] in Central Park yesterday and 102F [39C] at Kennedy airport, the site’s hottest temperature on record. It continues: “It is the second year in a row that a heatwave has hit the New York City region earlier than usual, as global warming is projected to worsen heatwaves and make them more frequent, climate experts say.” Reuters reports that temperatures in Washington DC and Boston were projected to reach 101F [38C] yesterday, “beating previous records by as much as 6F [3.3C]”, according to the National Weather Service. Other areas expected to experience record heat included “northern Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania”, the newswire says. Temperatures in neighbouring Toronto, Canada reached 36C, the highest in a decade, reports CTV News.

In New Jersey, more than 150 people fell ill with heat at an outdoor high school graduation ceremony on Monday, the Guardian reports. In Washington DC, six people were hospitalised from heat-related illness during a concert by South Korean band “Stray Kids”, BBC News reports. The broadcaster adds that at least 41 people in North Carolina were hospitalised over the heat. It continues: “Experts warn that the soaring temperatures throughout parts of North America could aggravate the risk of heat-related illness, especially due to high humidity levels. Compounding the danger is the extended duration of the event, with little nighttime relief. Temperatures in some eastern cities may remain above 80F (27C) overnight.” People in New York City were asked to conserve power on Tuesday, reports a second Reuters story. The Washington Post reports that detention centres in Washington DC “scrambled” to protect inmates from the extreme temperatures. The New York Times reports that the heat is exacerbating air pollution, causing a “double whammy” for human health. A separate New York Times article follows paramedics working to help people affected by heat-related illnesses.

A Guardian analysis by meteorologist Eric Holthaus examines the causes of the heat dome, saying: “The heatwave’s genesis comes from exceptionally high humidity pulled northward from record-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico by a record strong ridge of high pressure. As air gets warmer, it can also hold more water vapor – which increases the intensity of rainfall downpours but also increases the danger of heatwaves. Over the past 100 years of records, the average dew point temperature across the US has been increasing along with the average temperature.” A Bloomberg column by Mark Gongloff cites research by the independent group Climate Central finding the current heatwave was “made up to five times more likely by the fact that the atmosphere is simply hotter”.

Elsewhere, the Associated Press reports that hundreds of firefighters are tackling an “out of control” blaze on the Greek island of Chios. Bloomberg reports that Japan is currently facing a two-week heatwave. And CBS News reports that Tropical Storm Andrea became the first named storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season on Tuesday, adding it is not expected to threaten any land areas. 

In an “unusual vote of confidence in green policy”, the UK’s climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee, has said that the UK can reach its net-zero targets for 2050 and its interim 2030 goals, the Guardian reports. The CCC’s annual progress report to parliament also says that “difficult decisions cannot be ducked” if goals are to be achieved, “including a pressing need to overhaul the way energy is taxed in order to make electricity much cheaper than gas”, the newspaper says. It quotes CCC interim chair and climate scientist Prof Piers Forster as saying: “This is an optimistic report. It is possible to meet our carbon budgets for 2030 and 2050, provided we take steps forward [on policy]. It’s very important that our country steps up to deliver our commitments.” BBC News notes that the report says there was a surge in the number of people buying electric cars and heat pumps in 2024. It adds that “those numbers need to increase even further” if the UK is to meet its climate goals. The coverage of the Times, Press Association, Reuters, Daily Telegraph, Express and the i newspaper leads on the CCC’s top recommendation that the government should take action to reduce the gap between gas and electricity prices. The Times says that, according to the CCC, the government has made “no progress” on this over the last year, “hampering efforts to increase the number of heat pumps and electric cars in the UK”. The Financial Times leads on the report’s warning that rising aviation emissions could endanger efforts to meet the UK’s climate targets. Bloomberg focuses on a warning from the advisers that a “plan to build 1.5m new homes before the end of the decade may cause emissions to spike unless the government expedites a requirement for low-carbon heating”. Agence France-Presse covers the report’s finding that UK emissions have halved since 1990. Carbon Brief has in-depth coverage of what the CCC progress report says on every sector of the economy.

At the UN climate talks in Bonn, developing countries – led by India – have won a “small, but important victory” around climate finance, the Indian Express reports. Specifically, the countries have “managed to force a reopening of discussions on the obligations of developed nations to ‘provide’ finance” under the Paris Agreement and “not just mobilise financial resources”, the outlet explains. A formal consultation on Article 9.1 of the agreement was held on Monday “after developing countries made a united pushback”, the article says. Among the countries “highlighting the failure of the developed nations to deliver on their finance commitments”, India “said the inability of the developed nations to fulfil their obligations was resulting in an erosion of trust”, the outlet reports. The outcome of the consultation will see a “report…placed before a similar meeting” at the COP30 talks in Brazil later this year, the article says, with developing countries “hoping that at [COP30] they would manage to force the creation of a separate workstream to discuss the implementation of Article 9.1”. According to the Economic Times, India called the new climate finance goal set at COP29 in Baku “an eyewash”. Separately, observers tell the Hindustan Times that developed countries “also tried to block discussions” on advancing a work programme on a just transition away from fossil fuels and “did not agree to any new institutional arrangement [for it] that would have additional financial implications”. 

Elsewhere, the Economic Times quotes energy mogul Gautam Adani as saying that his Adani Group is “targeting 100GW [of] energy generation capacity across thermal, renewable and pumped hydropower” in India by 2030. This capacity, it adds, will include 45GW of renewable energy. While Mint carries a story on whether “cheaper Chinese batteries” could thwart “India’s EV battery dream”, Moneycontrol looks at whether countries in the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) “may redirect their solar cell and module exports to India” in the face of US tariffs.

Meanwhile, the New Indian Express reports that India’s low-lying coastal regions are “facing the threat of submergence due to rising sea levels, increasing at a faster rate than previously reported”, according to the State of Climate in Asia report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The article adds that the north Bay of Bengal region – “which covers the whole of India’s eastern coast” – has recorded the “second fastest rate” of sea level rise after the South China Sea. Other outlets that cover the WMO report include Mongabay India, Economic Times and the Deccan Herald. Separately, the News Minute carries a ground report from Chellanam – about 20km from Kerala’s capital of Kochi – where women have to “d[i]g channels to drain seawater from their flooded homes”. Finally, the Guardian writes that “the oven-like heat in India’s cities” is driving a massive increase in visitors to the country’s hill stations, with “more than 2m visitors” flocking to the small Himalayan towns of Mussoorie and Landour in 2024. 

The UK government is “poised to reject” a plan to divide the nation’s electricity market into zones, sources tell Bloomberg. The publication continues: “Government officials have briefed people closely following the policy that they are inclined not to push ahead with the proposal, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a decision that hasn’t been announced. They cautioned that a final decision hasn’t been made and that it will need involvement from prime minister Keir Starmer.” A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero tells Bloomberg it is “categorically untrue” that energy secretary Ed Miliband has decided against the proposal. The title adds: “A decision to reject the move will be a blow to the UK’s biggest electricity supplier Octopus Energy, which had been a vocal supporter of zonal pricing, arguing it would save consumers money.”

Elsewhere, the i newspaper reports that a scheme allowing homeowners to claim up to £7,500 for a heat pump is to be extended to 2030 under government plans. The Times reports from the annual conference of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, where delegates said the government’s new 10-year industrial strategy “lacks ambition”. The Press Association also reports on calls for the strategy to “go further” at the summit. Separately, the Press Association reports that David Whitehouse, the chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, has described the strategy’s measures to cut electricity prices for energy-intensive companies as a “short-term fix”. The Guardian reports that a planned switch off of an old type of electricity meter in the UK was postponed amid high temperatures. BusinessGreen reports that the head of the UK government’s clean power mission Chris Stark has called for the UK to aim to be an “electrostate”. The Daily Express reports that Octopus and Chinese car company BYD have teamed up to offer the UK’s first electric car bundle that includes free charging.

China’s energy intensity has decreased by a cumulative 11.6% in the first four years of the “14th five-year plan (2016-20)”, making the country’s cumulative reduction in energy intensity down by more than 26% since 2012, reports state broadcaster CCTV. The outlet adds: “This is equivalent to saving 1.4bn tonnes of standard coal and reducing CO2 emissions by about 3bn tonnes.” The PV magazine reports that China’s solar capacity surpassed one terawatt (TW) by the end of last month, a year-on-year increase of 57%, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA). Bloomberg carries an article under the headline: “China’s oil refiners hold off buying as weak demand hits profits.”

Meanwhile, China is “on target to launch a unified national power trading market” by the end of 2025, said Pang Xiaogang, president of the State Grid Corporation of China, at the “Summer Davos” in the city of Tianjin, Bloomberg reports. The newswire adds that China first set the goal of building a national power market in 2022 following “widespread outages” of power and has accelerated the construction of the market this year. Industry news outlet BJX News reports that the NEA says that the development of the unified national power market has “further improved in quality and accelerated in pace” in the first half of this year.

Elsewhere, the Straits Times reports that local authorities in China’s Guizhou province have told residents to “seek refuge” following days of heavy rainfalls, adding that some scientists warn that “climate change is ushering in heavier and more frequent rain” in China. State-supporting newspaper Global Times reports that a “highway bridge” in Guizhou has “collapsed” due to a “landslide triggered by continuous heavy rainfall”. 

Finally, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that China has shipped “huge amounts” of “hi-tech goods”, including batteries and solar panels, to the EU in May. And state news agency Xinhua reports that Chinese president Xi Jinping has met with Singaporean prime minister Lawrence Wong in Beijing, where Xi called on both countries to “create landmark achievements” in areas including “green development”. 

For the Economist, former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and former New Zealand prime minister and UN Development Programme head Helen Clark write that the UN risks “slipping into dysfunction”. They continue: “We know the UN needs reform, and we know how difficult that can be. But its strongest critics are sometimes those who make both its effectiveness and its reform most difficult: its member states. We are acutely aware of the UN’s overreliance on powerful states, the consequences of which are devastating. This is just as much the case for sustainable development or human rights as it is for peace and security. The world must seize this moment of crisis to reorient the UN away from the preferences of a minority and towards better serving all states.”

The Guardian has interviewed Dr Genevieve Guenther, a US climate communications specialist and the founding director of End Climate Silence, which studies the representation of climate change in the media and public discourse. She tells the publication: “Some people at the centre of the media, policymaking and even research claim that climate change isn’t going to be that bad for those who live in the wealthy developed world – the UK, Europe and the United States. When you hear these messages, you are lulled into a kind of complacency and it seems reasonable to think that we can continue to live as we do now without putting ourselves, our families, our communities under threat within decades.”

Elsewhere in UK titles, a Daily Telegraph column by world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that Donald Trump risks “hubris” by attempting to boost fossil fuel production. He writes: “The strategic value of America’s oil and gas resurgence has peaked and will henceforth roll over. Doubling down on fossils at this historical juncture is a trap. We are moving into a different energy era where the long-term prize will go to the masters of electro-tech, a more competitive way to organise an energy system once you get over the investment hump. China is running away with this electric future. Joe Biden recognised this with his Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a China policy dressed up as a green agenda. Trump is not only gutting the IRA but also going to great lengths to stop the free market deciding what energy technology makes most commercial sense.”

The Daily Telegraph also carries a column by climate sceptic Matthew Lynn bemoaning the lack of air conditioning amid rising temperatures in the UK. The Economist has an editorial that says the UK’s new industrial strategy is “unlikely to boost the economy”. And the New Statesman profiles Sarah Finch, the campaigner who was successful in a supreme court case against an oil and gas project last summer.

Warming of the tropical Indian Ocean can increase sea ice concentration in the Arctic during the northern-hemisphere winter, a new study finds. Using statistical analysis and numerical experiments, the researchers find a “robust linkage” between the Indian Ocean and the Arctic which they say could influence “the predictability and future projection” of the Arctic climate. Specifically, the study shows that warming of the Indian Ocean propagates an “anomalous low-pressure centre” over the Bering Strait. This, in turn, causes a weather system that induces a “pronounced south-westward drift” of sea ice from the Bering Sea to the high-latitude north Pacific. The researchers also note that Arctic sea ice “may provide feedback” to the Indian monsoon system.

A new study shows there is “strong evidence” of multi-year water quality degradation following wildfires in the western US. The researchers analyse more than 100,000 water quality data points at 245 “burned basins” over 1984-2021 and contrast the findings to a similar-sized dataset from 293 “unburned basins”. They find that average organic carbon and phosphorus exhibit “significantly elevated” levels in the first five years after a fire, whereas nitrogen and sediment show significant increases up to eight years post-fire. The findings, they add, could “help inform wildfire planning and resilience efforts” amid “increasing” wildfire threat to the region.