The Met Office has confirmed that the summer of 2025 was the UK’s hottest on record, according to the Guardian. The newspaper continues: “The mean temperature for meteorological summer, which encompasses the months of June, July and August, was 16.1C, which is significantly above the current record of 15.76C set in 2018.” The UK’s hottest five summers on record have all occurred since 2000, according to the newspaper. It adds that the Met Office conducted a “rapid analysis” which found that the record-breaking summer temperatures were about 70 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.” The newspaper also quotes Dr Mark McCarthy, the head of climate attribution at the UK Met Office: “In a natural climate, we could expect to see a summer like 2025 with an approximate return period of around 340 years, while in the current climate we could expect to see these sorts of summers roughly one in every five years.” Reuters, Sky News and the Independent are among the other outlets also covering the news.

MORE ON UK

• The Guardian reports that the Green party will name its next leader today “after a fiercely fought leadership contest”. 

A report by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) concludes that the basin’s oil and gas producers “will not meet the 2040 target of reducing emissions by 90% or the 2050 net-zero target”, without “serious investments in emissions reduction”, notes the Press Association. According to the newswire, the NSTA’s report says that the target for halving emissions between 2018 and 2030 is “well within reach on the current trajectory”. It adds: “This is the fifth year in a row emissions have gone down, the report noted, with this ‘contributing to a total decrease of 34% between 2018 and 2024’. Stuart Payne, the head of the NSTA, told BBC News that “cutting the sector’s carbon emissions is not ‘a platitude or a soundbite’, but presents significant commercial benefits”. 

Meanwhile, the Press Association says Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will pledge in a speech today at the Society of Petroleum Engineers Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen that her government, if she was ever elected prime minister, “would make North Sea oil and gas the ‘cornerstone’ of the economy”. BusinessGreen poses 12 questions for Badenoch, including “would a Conservative government repeal the Climate Change Act?” and “would a Conservative government committed to new fossil-fuel projects join President Trump in quitting the Paris Agreement?” (Claire Coutinho, the Conservative shadow energy minister was questioned earlier today about her party’s new stance on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.) The Daily Telegraph reports that “oil majors” have said “windfall taxes will kill off the North Sea within a matter of years unless the government eases the burden on firms”. The Financial Times says: “The government argues that new exploration licences would ‘not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis’, according to a spokesperson. But a government consultation earlier this year on the future of the North Sea looked at the viability of ‘tiebacks’, which allow new production to be linked to existing oil and gas hubs.”

MORE ON ENERGY

• The Financial Times reports that “China and Russia have signed an agreement to build the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline via Mongolia”. Bloomberg adds: “In comments made to Russian wires from Beijing, chief executive officer Alexey Miller said the gas producer could ship as much as 50bn cubic meters a year via the Power of Siberia 2 for 30 years.”
• Norwegian state-controlled oil and gas group company Equinor will give $900m to wind developer Ørsted, according to the Times. The Daily Telegraph says the “lifeline” from Equinor “seeks to stave off a crisis prompted by Donald Trump”. 
• Reuters reports that “French oil major TotalEnergies has been awarded an exploration permit for the Nzombo area off the coast of the Republic of Congo”.
• France24 has an article with the subheading: “Poland, long considered a central European country, is starting to look north toward its Nordic and Baltic neighbors. The shift is driven by energy and security concerns, with the Baltic Sea representing a potential green industry centre, according to an expert.” Similarly, the Financial Times reports on Poland’s “late entry into offshore wind”, which it says is drawing investors into the Baltic Sea.
• Bloomberg reports that EDF has extended the lifetime of two nuclear power stations in the UK until 2028. Reuters also covers the news.

China has issued an action plan on controlling nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in the industrial sector, calling for the intensity of “N2O emissions per unit” for specific chemicals to decrease to a “world-leading level” by 2030, industry news outlet BJX News reports. The plan, jointly issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), the National Development and Reform Commission – China’s top economic planning agency – and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, outlines “key tasks” including “refining supporting policies”, “enhancing technological innovation” and “improving the monitoring, reporting and verification systems” to address N2O emissions. An MEE official has told reporters that “China’s total N2O emissions in 2021 were 2m tonnes”, reports energy news outlet International Energy Net. The official adds that “industrial production processes” accounted for 28% of total N2O emissions and that the plan was an “important part of advancing the green and low-carbon transformation of [China’s] industry”.

MORE ON CHINA

• Chinese president Xi Jinping said at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit yesterday that China will cooperate with SCO member states on “energy [and] green industry” and help them “implement” solar and wind projects over the next five years, Xinhua reports. During China’s time as SCO chair, it worked with other SCO states on 77 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy projects, notes China Energy Net.
• In 2024, China’s investment in oil and gas exploration and development exceeded 400bn yuan ($56bn), People’s Daily reports.
• 21st Century Business Herald interviews MEE climate change department head Xia Yingxian on “next steps” for China’s carbon market. Caixin quotes iGDP’s Liu Xueye saying including absolute emissions caps in the carbon market “will provide clear targets for various heavy industries”.
• Xinhua publishes an opinion article by Tsinghua University professor Xia Qing and Qingneng Interconnection Consulting director Chen Yuguo where they discuss how developing “new energy market entry and trading mechanisms” will help with power grid reforms.
• The China Electricity Council has issued “opinions” on strengthening the “construction of a credit system” in China’s power industry, International Energy Net reports.
• Bloomberg reports that Chinese EV company BYD “has seen monthly sales stall as smaller, nimble rivals chip away at its ascendancy”. And People’s Daily dismisses claims that “solar panels emit harmful electromagnetic radiation”.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for climate change, the Guardian reports. The newspaper quotes Sánche: “We need to mobilise as a society against climate change, which is a common enemy that lies beyond ideologies…Climate change kills…The climate change denial that’s coming from an important part [of society] – and which is growing as a result of the lies spread on social networks by some members of our political class – is as incomprehensible as it is worrying.” According to the newspaper, Sánchez has proposed “initiatives” including “a network of climate refuges across the country and a rethink of forest management and land use”. Reuters reports that Sánchez said Spain’s government would “coordinate a series of measures on climate change with neighbouring countries in response to recent weather-related disasters, such as August’s massive wildfires”. 

MORE ON EUROPE

• “European Union countries are considering a 10-year delay to the introduction of EU-wide taxes on aviation and shipping fuels as they seek to push long-delayed energy tax reforms over the line,” according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

Democratic governors “are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s plans to halt offshore wind developments”. Bloomberg reports. According to the outlet, New York governor Kathy Hochul, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey, Connecticut governor Ned Lamont, Rhode Island governor Dan McKee and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy issued a statement yesterday, saying: “We are looking for the Trump administration to uphold all offshore wind permits already granted and allow these projects to be constructed.” The outlet says the Trump administration has “moved more aggressively in recent weeks” to restrict the construction of wind farms.

MORE ON THE US

• Agence France-Presse reports that “the Trump administration is scrapping satellite observations of Earth”. It adds that “meteorologists and climate scientists say it is drawing a line between what is weather – and, thus, warrants government investment – and what is climate”. 
• DeSmog profiles the climate-sceptic Canadian economist Ross McKitrick, under the headline: “Meet the Canadian aiding Trump’s ‘insane’ war on climate science.”
• The Financial Times says: “No environmental proposals have passed shareholder votes during this year’s proxy season, for the first time in six years, in a further sign of diminishing investor support for the climate agenda in the US.”
• The Financial Times has a “big read” with the headline: “How the Trump administration gutted America’s disaster relief agency.” 
• The Wall Street Journal reports that “EV deals are booming ahead of tax-credit expiration”. 

Claire Thomas, the director of Minority Rights Group, writes for Climate Home News about a “landmark” opinion from the International Court of Justice, which finds that “national climate policies must protect Indigenous and minority rights – but to be effective, it needs to be enforced by states”. Thomas calls the legal opinion a “milestone in an existential battle”. She says: “It also recognised that degradation of the environment violates our human rights and that we cannot meaningfully enjoy those rights without a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to live in. These recognitions are important for all humanity, but particularly so for those whose rights are already the least fulfilled or most at risk – Indigenous peoples and minorities among them.”

MORE COMMENT

• Reuters Context carries an interview with Laurence Tubiana, “a key architect of the 2015 Paris accord to curb global warming and special envoy to Europe for the COP30 talks”. It says that Tubiana “hopes Brazil can revive some of the Paris spirit, getting nations to turn their red lines green and commit to implementing the 2015 deal to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels”. (Tubiana leads the European Climate Foundation, which funds Carbon Brief.)
• Le Monde interviews French economist Thomas Piketty, who “explains that protecting the planet from climate change cannot be achieved without reducing inequality”. 

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Ayesha Tandon, with contributions from Anika Patel and Henry Zhang. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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