The Trump administration has taken another step towards rolling back US environmental regulations by proposing an end to limits on methane leaks for the oil and gas industry, the Financial Times reports. It says the move comes “despite protests from some of the world’s largest oil companies themselves”, though it notes backing from industry body the American Petroleum Institute. The FT says this is “the latest attempt by the White House to row back on environmental rules imposed under then-president Barack Obama”. The New York Times says the move has “revealed at least tactical divisions on climate policy” between different players in the oil and gas industry. A second New York Times article explains that the rollback would eliminate federal rules requiring companies detect leaks and fix them at wells, pipelines and storage facilities. The Washington Post says the Trump administration is also challenging the US Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate methane as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It says: “If successful, that change could hamper future administrations from enacting tougher restrictions on methane.” Axios, Politico, the Hill, InsideClimate News, Reuters, the Independent and others all have the story. The New York Times has a feature on “major climate change rules the Trump administration is reversing”.

Three separate articles from the newswire report on a draft summary of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on oceans and the cryosphere in a changing climate “obtained by AFP” – but not due to be published until mid-September. The first piece says that climate change could cause “a steady decline in fish stocks, a hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms, and hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas, according to the [report]”. A second AFP piece looks at what the draft report says about sea level rise and its causes. The piece says that ice sheets at the poles lost around 400bn tonnes of mass each year in the decade to 2015 and that glaciers lost 280bn tonnes, with the two together adding around 2mm to annual sea level rise. The third AFP article says the world’s major economies are “drivers [and] victims” of this sea level rise. The IPCC has released a statement on the media coverage of its draft summary that says: “Drafts of the report are collective works in progress that do not necessarily represent the IPCC’s final assessment of the state of knowledge.” It adds that “the text can change between the drafts and the final version”.

Brazil has banned the setting of fires to clear land for 60 days in response to a “massive increase in the number of fires in the Amazon rainforest”, BBC News reports. It says the ban, signed by president Jair Bolsonaro, “comes as a leading environmentalist warns ‘the worst of the fire is yet to come’”. The Independentalso reports on the comments of Brazilian environmentalist Tasso Azevedo, who it says was the first director general of the National Forest Service. The 60-day ban coincides with the dry season when most fires are usually lit, says another Independent article. It adds that “Brazil’s forest code allows licensed farmers and others to set some fires.” The Daily Telegraph has continued coverage of the political “war of words” over the Amazon fires between French president Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s Bolsonaro. Reuters says the fires have “scorched Bolsonaro’s reputation abroad, but not in Brazil”. The New York Times has a feature on the Amazon that says “Climate change and man-made fires could set off a cycle of self-perpetuating deforestation, scientists warn.” Meanwhile, in the Spectator, climate sceptic hereditary peer Matt Ridley writes that the “most dangerous thing about the Amazon fires is the apocalyptic rhetoric”. Separately, Reuters reports on the ongoing wildfires “linked to warming” in Alaska.

Outgoing government chief scientist Prof Sir Ian Boyd has said people will need to use less transport, eat less red meat and buy fewer clothes if the UK is to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, BBC News reports. The comments came in an interview with the broadcaster, which says Boyd added that persuasive political leadership would be needed to carry the public through the challenge. Boyd also said the Treasury should reform tax policy to reward low-carbon lifestyles and nudge heavy emitters towards cutting their output, BBC News reports.

The outlook for the Great Barrier Reef has deteriorated from “poor” to “very poor”, the Guardian says, picking up a five-yearly Australian government review. According to the paper, the report “says climate change is escalating the threat [to the reef] and window of opportunity for action is now”. The “very poor” rating has been given to the reef for the first time, the Financial Times reports. The shift “prompted a plea from conservation groups for the…coalition government to move decisively to cut greenhouse gas emissions and phase out the country’s reliance on coal”, the FT says. The Sydney Morning Herald also has the story. Separately, the Guardian and Reuters report that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen again in the year to March, with a growing liquified natural gas (LNG) industry largely to blame. The Sydney Morning Herald says emissions reached a seven-year high.

Between 50 and 200 people are planning to ground flights at Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, in a protest over the warming impacts of air travel, reports the Independent. It quotes London’s Metropolitan Police saying the activists face “long jail sentences”. The “Heathrow Pause” activists are a “splinter group of Extinction Rebellion”, the Guardian reports, adding that they plan to shut down the airport on 13 September from 3am, using toy drones. Climate Home Newsalso covers the story. In an editorial, the Sun describes the plan as “the militant wrecking tactics of the hard-left doomsday cult Extinction Rebellion”, saying: “Their hysteria about imminent mass deaths is not backed by science…Britain must not pay a price for these idiots’ gullibility.” Meanwhile Climate Home Newscarries a comment from Natalie Jones, a writer for Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Jones argues that the idea of banning flying to reach UN climate talks “would only disadvantage the most vulnerable”. She says the push is “dangerous” and that the least developed countries would effectively be excluded from the process.

In one of a three-part series published by DeSmog UK today on “the new climate activism”, Sophie Yeo recounts the “rise to fame” of Greta Thunberg and the related “resurgence” in the movement, including school climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion. Yeo writes: “For many campaigners, who have grown weary of watching their warnings fall on deaf ears, it has felt like hope has arrived at last.” The series is completed by a DeSmog UK video on whether the latest wave of climate activism is really new, as well as an audio feature reporting from two different actions in the UK.

The Daily Mirror continues its series of coverage on climate change with a double-page spread on the Inughuit people, which it says is “the world’s most northerly Inuit community”. The report, by environment editor Nada Farhoud, says they have “eked out an existence in the Arctic desert in north-west Greenland for centuries with sea ice a vital part of life…[but] climate change [has] made hunting more dangerous due to thinning ice [and] has halved the season”.