The states of Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as Orsted – the developer of a major offshore windfarm off the north-east US coast – have announced that they are suing the Trump administration for halting the nearly completed project, the Associated Press reports. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order towards the end of August, citing national security concerns without specifying what those concerns were, according to the outlet. Orsted stated in the court filing that the order was “arbitrary and capricious” after the company and its partners had already spent billions of dollars on the project, the Financial Times reports. The developers said they had spent $5bn so far and would incur another $1bn in financial penalties for failing to complete it, together with the billions in lost revenue, according to the New York Times. This came just “hours before the two New England states announced a lawsuit of their own”, according to the Los Angeles Times. Their actions “kick off a major legal battle over a flurry of recent orders reflecting president Donald Trump’s longstanding antipathy to wind power”, the newspaper adds. Axios notes that “Trump also plans to pull existing permits for a planned wind project in Maryland”. In its coverage, the Guardian quotes Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island senator, who points out that “wind power is one of the fastest, safest, cheapest ways to meet rising electricity demand and cut energy prices”. Heatmap has published a timeline of Trump’s “war against wind energy”. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has published an explainer looking at the Trump administration’s broader “anti-renewables push”.

MORE ON US

• The Trump administration is escalating attacks on “polluter pays” laws and dozens of related lawsuits taking place around the US, which are trying to force fossil-fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate change, the New York Times reports.
• New Global Energy Monitor data on the US power capacity pipeline shows that developers are “planning to sharply boost natural gas and hydropower” and cutting back on plans to add new solar and windfarms, Reuters reports.
• Sales of Ford electric cars “skyrocketed” in August by 19% compared to the same month last year, as buyers “rushed to beat” the Trump administration’s deadline for removing tax credits, according to the Detroit Free Press.
• CNN has an article about the Trump administration’s failure to curb energy prices – despite pledges on the campaign trail – which notes that renewables can play a role in reducing costs.

The Business Council of Australia has “thrown its support behind” the nation’s net-zero target, but said a 2035 climate target to reduce emissions from 2005 levels by at least 60% would require more than AUD$400bn ($261bn) in new capital investment from government and industry, according to the Australian Financial Review. Modelling commissioned by the lobby group examines a range of climate targets between 50% and 70%, concluding that these goals would require between AUD$210bn ($137bn) and AUD$530bn ($345bn) of new investment, the newspaper adds. This comes as government advisors at the Climate Change Authority are due to recommend a new 2035 target, the Guardian reports. The newspaper says the authority’s “preliminary advice” suggests “a range between 65% and 75% would be ambitious but achievable”. It adds that the business group “has chosen not to advocate for a specific target”, noting also that its analysis “does not factor in the cost of not acting on the climate crisis, nor does it measure the economic benefits of new investment”. ABC News notes that the Australian government will announce the new emissions target this month, following the authority’s recommendation. It frames Australia’s business and climate communities as being in opposition, with various climate groups calling for cuts beyond 70%. Right-leaning tabloid the Australian Daily Telegraph frames the analysis as the “eye-watering cost of Australia’s climate change target”. Similarly, the right-leaning Australian has the headline: “Business issues $530bn warning on Labor’s 2035 emissions target.”

China added 283 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity in the first seven months of the year, bringing total installed capacity of renewables to 2,171GW, state-run news outlet China News says, citing outcomes of a National Energy Administration (NEA) meeting. Renewable sources now account for nearly 60% of total capacity, according to the NEA. It added that renewable power generation reached 2,180 terawatt-hours (TWh), accounting for 40% of total power generation during this period. Industry news outlet International Energy Net also covers the meeting, saying the NEA urged local governments to “promptly” release renewables pricing reform plans. [Seven provinces have released finalised plans, while 13 have published draft plans, according to Carbon Brief analysis.] The NEA also called on policymakers to accelerate drafting the 15th five-year plan for renewable energy, design “new models and business formats” for renewable energy and develop “more competitive, innovative and dynamic” power businesses, energy news outlet BJX News reports. 

MORE ON CHINA

• China is targeting 5% growth in the “electronic information manufacturing industry”, which includes batteries and solar products, Xinhua reports. The policy also calls for “regulating low-price competition” in the solar and battery sectors, BJX News says.
• Securities Daily says “listed hydropower and nuclear power companies achieved revenue growth of more than 4%” in the first half of 2025.
• CF Bond publishes an interview with former NEA deputy director Zhang Yuqing, who says “ensuring energy security must be treated as the top priority” in the next five-year plan period, while China must “leverage coal’s primary role while advancing its clean and efficient utilisation in line with…low-carbon development”.
• Several European figures are urging the EU to adopt similar decarbonisation policies to China, Guancha reports, citing reporting by the Financial Times. China’s progress in emissions reduction has “drawn attention from the western world”, it adds, pointing to Carbon Brief analysis.  
• Dialogue Earth: “China’s extreme weather AI tools can help countries adapt.”
• Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer BYD has “slashed its sales target” for 2025 as it faces its “slowest annual growth” since 2020, Reuters reports. 

Heavy rain in northern India and neighbouring Pakistan has led to worsening floods as major rivers have overflowed, according to Reuters. The newswire says the “fierce monsoon season” has “brought immense destruction” this year, killing a total of 880 in Pakistan and nearly 150 people in India in August alone. Half a million people in Pakistan have fled their homes over the past day, bringing the number of evacuees up to 1.8 million, according to the Associated Press. The India Meteorological Department has issued a nationwide alert amid “relentless heavy rainfall and devastating floods”, the Times of India says. Another Associated Press article says “experts blame climate change” for “some of the worst flooding and landslides in decades”. It quotes scientists who say that, while the monsoon season used to be predictable, the rains now arrive in an increasingly erratic and intense manner.

MORE ON SOUTH ASIA

• India has more than halved the goods and service tax rate on domestic sales of renewable-energy equipment, “as part of a raft of measures to shore up local consumption and shield the economy from punitive US tariffs”, Bloomberg reports.
• India’s Tamil Nadu coast faces “an unsettling future” as sea levels are projected to rise by as much as 78cm by 2100 “under high-emissions scenarios”, according to a new study covered by the Times of India.
• The Associated Press has an article about India’s attempts to compete against China by expanding its domestic solar power manufacturing.

The UK government could save energy users £5bn a year “by overhauling the electricity market to stop gas-fired power stations from setting the wholesale price for electricity”, according to a new report covered by the Guardian. The analysis was commissioned by Greenpeace and co-authored by Adam Bell, the government’s former head of strategy at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the article explains. By removing gas plants from the market, electricity bills for households could be cut by £1.7bn a year and those for businesses and industrial users could drop by £3.3bn a year, the newspaper explains. It adds that, under the existing system, even as cheap renewables come online in the UK, “the price of generating power from gas continues to keep overall costs high”.

MORE ON UK

• There is Guardian and Times coverage of comments originally made to the Financial Times by Patrick Tiernan, the new chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, stating the corporation will no longer discourage insurers from underwriting fossil-fuel projects. The Daily Telegraph has the headline: “Lloyd’s of London reverses net-zero ban.”
• Analysis of voter attitudes by politics professor Sir John Curtice for BBC News notes that just 33% of Reform UK voters think that climate change is being caused mainly by human activity – “far fewer than the 54% figure among the public in general”.
• More than a quarter of England and Wales constituencies that have fracking licences in place are in Reform UK seats, something that “could divide potential voters”, the Guardian reports, based on analysis by Unearthed.
• Chinese electric-vehicle company BYD has “dramatically” grown its share of the UK car market, selling 1,759 vehicles in August – compared to 438 in the same month last year – according to the Daily Telegraph.

After a six-month pause caused by political tensions, the €7bn Danish-German electricity hub on Bornholm island “is gaining momentum again”, reports Der Spiegel. The project aims to transmit offshore wind power from the Baltic Sea to Germany and Denmark, the newspaper details. It notes that German company Siemens Energy has won a major order worth more than €1bn to supply four converters for the site. Reuters adds that the European Commission is providing a €645m grant for a renewable energy cluster of the project. However, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) notes that “several political hurdles remain”, pointing out that Germany has not yet begun the approval process for the cable routes, while rising material costs and the “complexity of coordinating” Danish and German interests pose further challenges. In addition, Reuters reports that the German industry lobby says “energy transition risks €5.4tn burden by 2049”, while “weakening Germany’s economic base”. 

Nicola MacLeod, general counsel and director of corporate affairs at clean energy group D2Zero, has an article in the Scotsman about declining fossil-fuel production in the North Sea and the UK’s increasing reliance on oil and gas imports that are “not necessarily cleaner”. She writes that delegates have gathered in Aberdeen this week for the Offshore Europe Conference and have seen “the same binary arguments dominate the headlines: ‘shut it all down’ versus ‘drill, baby, drill’”. Instead, she stresses the need to “harness” the “skills, infrastructure and tax revenues generated by the North Sea” to enable a low-carbon transition. “This is what a just transition looks like: not switching one system off overnight and hoping something else appears, but using what we have today to build what we need tomorrow,” MacLeod states.

MORE IN UK COMMENT

• A lengthy Daily Mail editorial calls for the “talents on the right” in UK politics– including Reform UK and some Conservative party politicians – to come together and “sweep away” the Labour government, which it says is “in thrall to the disastrous dogmas of net-zero”.
• Ajit Niranjan, the Guardian’s Europe environment correspondent, writes about how the European far right has “unexpectedly made green-bashing” one of its main priorities.
• The Economist has an article about the “hard right’s plans for Europe’s economy”, in which it states that while “many hard-right parties still take a tough line on climate change”, those in power – such as in Italy – “tend to change tack”.

Veteran climate activist Bill McKibben has a piece in the New Yorker reflecting on how 84 scientists have “debunked” the Trump administration’s recent climate report that had “attempted to show that global warming is no big deal”. McKibben writes: “The American scientific enterprise, the source of so much wealth and national prestige, is being unravelled before our eyes – research grants are being cut off, satellites disconnected, reports cooked up to meet the needs of particular industries and ideologies.” In the end, he concludes, “the truth will out”. He says even “if it’s not in the form of enlightened policy, it will be in the form of pandemics and wildfires, of untreated disease and rising sea level. Because life really is like this”. [For more on the report, see Carbon Brief’s factcheck.]

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Josh Gabbatiss, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Robert McSweeney.

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