There is widespread coverage of US president Donald Trump’s speech to the UN general assembly, in which he called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. [Human-induced warming is an “established fact”, according to the IPCC.] Reuters reports that Trump “spoke for several minutes out of his near-hour speech on climate change”, criticising the EU for “reducing its carbon footprint, which he claimed has taken a toll on its economy”, and “warning countries that have invested heavily in renewable energy that their economies will suffer”. According to the newswire, he said: “All of these predictions made by the UN and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.” [Carbon Brief has an explainer on how climate models have accurately projected global warming to date. Its author Dr Zeke Hausfather responded to Trump’s claim on Bluesky, saying climate projects have been “pretty spot on”.]

The New York Times reports that Trump also criticised wind turbines and accused environmentalists of wanting to “kill all the cows”. It continues: “He chose his two targets, demonising immigrants and green energy, and called them a ‘double-tailed monster’ that he claimed, without evidence, are ‘destroying’ Europe. Both subjects play well to his base in the Republican Party. But it was remarkable that he said all this to a global audience.” The newspaper adds that Trump’s speech “added up to an extraordinary diatribe that ignored the human suffering exacted by the heatwaves, wildfires and deadly floods that are aggravated by the burning of fossil fuels and, at the same time, stood at odds with the rapid expansion of renewable energy all over the world.”

The speech made the frontpage of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, as well as the Guardian, Daily Mirror, i newspaper, Times, Financial Times and Daily Telegraph. Bloomberg notes that Trump took specific aim at the UK over its policy to end new drilling in the North Sea in his speech, saying: “There’s tremendous oil that hasn’t been found in the North Sea. They essentially closed it by making it so highly taxed that no developer, no oil company, can go there.” [Output from the North Sea is already in decline. Oil production peaked in 1999, while gas production in the UK continental shelf peaked in 2000.] Bloomberg reports that UK energy secretary Ed Miliband responded by saying: “We are the duly elected government of the UK and we have a mandate for our mission.” The Daily Mail describes Trump’s attacks on UK wind and solar as a “humiliation” for UK prime minister Keir Starmer. CNN, ABC News and the Guardian factcheck the false claims made in Trump’s speech. BBC News notes that Trump’s comments are “at odds with [the] overwhelming science consensus”. BBC News also reports from the room, saying Trump’s tirade on climate change sparked “audible gasps” from gathered leaders.

China’s emissions are predicted to peak in 2028 at 11.3bn tonnes and start to “decline by 1.6bn tonnes by 2030 if the country manages to mobilise 17.5tn yuan ($2.5tn) in green investments over the next five years, according to the China International Capital Corporation”, an investment bank, Bloomberg reports. Another Bloomberg report says that China’s “power demand growth” slowed in August, rising by 5% from a year ago, compared with 8.6% in July and 5.4% in June, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). The outlet adds that “cooler weather has helped take some pressure off the grid”. China Energy Net says that electricity consumption in China reached 1,015 terawatt-hours (TWh) in August. It exceeded 1,000TWh for two consecutive months in July and August – the first time this happens globally, according to financial news outlet Cailianpress.

MORE ON CHINA

• Agence France-Press previews the unveiling of China’s 2035 climate pledge, which is expected to happen at a UN climate summit in New York later today, although it “may come before”.
• Reuters reports John Podesta, former climate adviser to US president Joe Biden, saying: “We now look to China…to fully commit to the Paris Agreement it helped craft by issuing an NDC [climate pledge] that charts a credible path to that country’s goal of net-zero before 2060…This means roughly a 30% emissions reduction, covering all greenhouse gases, by 2035, below peak 2024 levels, which new data demonstrates that they reached.” 
• China has issued a new policy calling for the “green and safe development” of industrial parks, BJX News reports.
• Reuters: “China enlists solar panels in war to halt desert sands.”
• China’s top province for solar panels, Shandong, is looking to develop “other renewables as well as battery storage” in a move to deal with “a glut of midday electricity” that is “overwhelming the grid”, Bloomberg reports.

The European Commission plans to once more delay the enforcement of its landmark deforestation law, Bloomberg reports. According to the outlet, the bloc plans to cite “technical concerns” as the reason for delay. It continues: “Sophisticated tracking systems are required to comply with the rules, which would be enforced using the threat of fines. Importers must have collected precise data identifying the plots of land where the goods were grown.” According to Bloomberg, the bloc’s environment commissioner, Jessika Roswall, told journalists: “We have concerns regarding the IT system given the amount of information that we put into the system.” Agence France-Press notes the law has been criticised by “key trading partners from the US to Indonesia”. Politico adds that businesses have complained that the law would be a “burden” and that the delay represents the latest on the commission’s “war on red tape”.

Brazil is aiming to convince other countries, including the EU and China, to “unify carbon markets globally”, ahead of hosting the COP30 climate summit in November, Bloomberg reports. It continues: “Officials are working on a proposal to better integrate national emission trading systems and the standards that underpin them, according to a draft document seen by Bloomberg. The push is part of Brazil’s action agenda, which seeks to help countries implement their climate commitments. The EU and China have expressed interest in joining the agreement, which may make it one of the most significant outcomes of the November summit, said people familiar with the matter. Still, the EU is wary about the proposal because of concerns that it may undermine the bloc’s strict standards, the people said.”

MORE ON BRAZIL

• At the UN general assembly, Brazil made the first contribution to its Tropical Forests Forever finance facility, pledging $1bn, Climate Home News reports.
• Brazil environment minister Marina Silva has said that China’s role in lowering renewable-energy and electric-vehicle costs should be formally recognised in climate goals, Bloomberg reports.
• Brazil’s proposal for a new international forum to discuss how climate policies can affect trade has received a “lukewarm” reception, says Climate Home News.

India is “likely to release an updated climate action plan during, or just ahead of” COP30, the Indian Express reports, citing government sources. It adds that the updated pledge is “unlikely to promise anything new apart from making an upward revision” of the three targets its current pledge commits to – reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP, increasing the share of renewables and expanding its carbon sink – and extending them to 2035. India has also said its third nationally determined contribution (NDC) might “reflect the disappointment of the climate finance outcome at COP29 in Baku”, the story adds. Environment ministry sources tell the Hindu that India will submit its third NDC on 10 November, with an “increased target for energy efficiency improvement”. It adds that major emissions reductions could result from “bilateral agreements between countries where developed and developing countries jointly invested in clean-energy projects and shared the resulting cut in emissions” under Article 6 carbon markets. 

MORE ON INDIA

• At least 10 people were killed as Kolkata “recorded its heaviest rainfall in 37 years”, the Hindustan Times reports. BBC News reports that “[v]ast swathes of the city are inundated”, after “one of the city’s heaviest single-spell rainfall in recent memory”.
• The Associated Press looks at how India’s tech capital of Bangalore is trying to save and restore its “centuries-old network of cascading lakes” as climate risks “grow”.

Super Typhoon Ragasa has killed at least 14 people in Taiwan and left 124 missing after its torrential rains caused a barrier lake to burst, “unleashing a wall of water”, AFP reports. After striking the Philippines and “bearing down on Taiwan since Monday”, the storm is today moving in on Hong Kong and southern China, the newswire adds. It adds that the typhoon has forced “Chinese authorities to shut down schools and businesses in at least 10 cities”. Southern China’s Guangdong province has upgraded its typhoon alert to the highest level and evacuated more than 371,000 people across the province in preparation for the typhoon’s arrival, SCMP reports. The New York Times reports that, in total, one million people have been evacuated in China as the storm approaches.

There are several comment and analysis pieces reacting to Donald Trump’s UN speech. BBC News diplomatic correspondent James Landale says the “biggest criticism” Trump made in his speech was for his “European allies”, which he attacked “for investing in renewable energy and opening its borders to migration”. In the Guardian, diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour notes that South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, responded to Trump’s speech by saying that climate change “was far from being a hoax” and “represents a threat to global humanity”. The i newspaper carries one column by journalist James Ball calling Trump’s comments “unhinged even by his standards” and another titled: “Trump is right, we are all going to a hell of his making.” Times columnist Katy Balls calls Trump’s speech a “gloves off public mauling”. A second Times piece examines why Trump is “obsessed” with wind turbines, which he derided in his speech. Striking a very different tone, Nile Gardiner, a “former aide to Margaret Thatcher”, writes in the net-zero-sceptic Daily Mail that Trump’s speech is a “rallying cry for the defence of western civilisation”. An editorial in the climate-sceptic Daily Express is supportive of Trump’s call to increase fossil-fuel production in the North Sea.

Global environment writer Jonathan Watts says in the Guardian that the “biggest far-right protest in UK history [which took place last Saturday] is a reminder that the battle for a fair and habitable planet cannot be fought solely in the silos of science or environmentalism”. He continues: “Extreme weather and extreme politics are intertwined. First, because the latter feeds off the fear and uncertainty caused by the former. Second, because global climate action against big emitters has provoked resistance by billionaire individuals, companies and petrostates, who are pouring money into campaigns to deny, delay and distract. And third, because many of the ultra-rich are indeed apocalyptic in their visions of the future but they have given up on global solutions and would rather invest in their individual doomsday bunkers…The great fear of Trump and his billionaire backers in the petrochemical and infotech industries appears to be that humanity could come together to find a solution to shared problems. For them, this would mean regulation, stagnation and higher taxes on the rich.”

MORE COMMENT

• A Guardian editorial says Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey’s “backing for green energy” is a defining trait of his “ethical intent”.
• Politico reporters have a deep dive on how “Europe’s climate clout” is “melt[ing] away”.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Daisy Dunne, with contributions from Aruna Chandrasekhar, Wanyuan Song and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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