The Independent reports on official statistics showing that hundreds of extra deaths were recorded in England during the summer heatwave. In the last week of June, when temperatures exceeded 30C, there were 382 more deaths in England than the average for the same period between 2013 to 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics’ quarterly mortality report. The report runs from April-June, meaning the impact of the heatwave on the number of deaths in July is not accounted for. Press Association carries quotes from Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics. He told Press Association: “It is likely that many of the people who died during the hot weather suffered from underlying illnesses, such as respiratory disease. Nonetheless, many of these deaths may have been prevented if buildings were better adapted to prevent overheating.”

The Guardian reports that two whistleblowers have raised allegations of bullying against the UK energy regulator Ofgem. The two men say Ofgem threatened them with “an obscure but sweeping gagging clause that can lead to criminal prosecutions and possible jail terms for those who defy it” after they raised concerns about “irregularities” in the projects they were working on while being employed by the regulator, according to the Guardian. The Times also covers the story.

The Times reports that high gas prices have triggered a resurgence in electricity generation from coal in the UK. The comeback could cause the energy sector’s emissions to rise for the first time in six years, the Guardian reports. Coal plants have become cheaper to run than gas plants in the past month because wholesale gas prices have hit 10-year highs, according to the Guardian. A report by Imperial College London finds the increased reliance on coal increased emissions by 15% in September – equivalent to an extra 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hour.

Oil firm Royal Dutch Shell has unveiled plans to limit its methane emissions, the Financial Times reports. On Monday, Shell pledged to keep methane emissions below 0.2% of the total natural gas extracted and transported from projects it operates by 2025, according to the FT. At present, project intensity can be as high as 0.8%. Shell said it would deploy “infrared cameras and advanced technology” to detect and repair methane leaks from its gas wells, pipes and pumps. The goal is similar to one set last year by rival oil company BP, Reuters reports.

The world’s first hydrogen-powered train has been launched in Germany, Agence France-Press (AFP) reports. Two bright blue Coradia iLint trains – which were built by French firm Alstom – have begun running a 62-mile route in northern Germany, across a stretch normally operated by diesel trains. Alstom has said it plans to deliver another 14 of the zero-emissions trains to Lower Saxony state by 2021, according to AFP.

“As science linking storms like Hurricane Florence and Super Typhoon Mangkhut to climate change strengthens, so does the case for compensating victims,” writes Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at Independent University, Bangladesh, for Climate Home News. “The time has come to think about raising money for compensate victims of climate change through innovative sources, applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle wherever possible,” he writes. Such an effort could mirror the the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF), he argues, which gets contributions from all the international oil tanker companies and then makes payouts to any coastal community that is affected by an oil spill, regardless of which ship caused the spill.

Guardian columnist and scientist Dana Nuccitelli analyses California’s plans to make its economy carbon neutral by 2045. His analysis draws on an a graph created by Carbon Brief which shows that, in order to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels, global emissions must fall more quickly if they peak later.

Accounting for carbon emissions from non-linear permafrost thaw could effectively wipe out the carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5C, new research suggests. Using an earth system model, the authors incorporate processes for permafrost thaw, soil organic matter decomposition, and CO2 and methane emissions. The findings suggest that these processes reduce the carbon budget for 2C by up to 25% if “net negative emissions prove feasible” and by up to 34% if they do not. “For the 1.5 °C target, reductions in the median remaining budget range from ~10% to more than 100%,” the authors say.

A volcano beneath a glacier in Iceland could contribute more CO2 to the atmosphere than previously thought, a new study says. Using airborne measurements from 2016-17 and an atmospheric dispersion model, the researchers quantify CO2 emissions from Katla, a major subglacial volcanic feature in Iceland. Katla last erupted 100 years ago but has been undergoing significant unrest in recent decades. The findings suggest that Katla “is one of the largest volcanic sources of CO2 on the planet”, the authors say, “contributing up to 4% of global emissions from non‐erupting volcanoes”.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries have made initial pledges to cut emissions – known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – up to the year 2030. A new study assesses the methods used to estimate the global temperature implications out to 2100 of these NDCs. The findings show that “the simpler methods are not suitable for temperature projections,” the researchers say, “while more complex methods can produce results consistent with the energy and economic scenario literature”. The choice of methods to evaluate NDCs is therefore “very important for reviewing progress toward the Paris Agreement’s long‐term temperature goal,” the authors conclude.