The UK is officially experiencing its driest start to a summer since modern records began in 1961, the BBC reports. Just 50.8mm of rain fell between 1 June and 19 July, compared to the previous record of 58mm set in 2013. A Met Office spokesman told the BBC there was no “significant sign” of change “any time soon”. The Sunday Times reports on comment from British water regulator Ofwat that it would like to see consumption returning to 1960-levels of around 85 litres per person a day. “The 141 litres used daily by the average Briton is far too high for a country with a rising population that is also facing climate change,” the Sunday Times reports. The MailOnline meanwhile reports that the heatwave has caused a built up of “deadly” blue-green algae in British lakes. The Daily Mail and MailOnline carry a panel look at “what is behind this astonishing heatwave?” It includes a comment from Becky Mitchell, a meteorologist at the Met Office: “The causes haven’t yet been looked at it in depth. The answer will lie in global weather patterns and what we call ‘teleconnections’.”

Government predictions of the savings smart meters will generate for consumers are inflated, out of date and based on a number of questionable assumptions, a group of MPs and peers has said. The head of the British Infrastructure Group of Parliamentarians (BIG) said £11bn scheme to put 53m devices in 30m homes and small businesses by 2020 has been “plagued by repeated delays and cost increases”. High numbers of the devices have also gone “dumb” after installation, the group said, due to problems caused by switching provider or mobile data coverage. The Daily Mail and BBC News also cover the report. Meanwhile, Telegraph Money reports that customers whose smart meters have “ “gone dumb” following a switch will not regain the lost functions if they return to their original energy supplier.

Japan’s biggest life insurer has said it will no longer extend loans for, or invest in, coal-fired power plants, Reuters reports. The move, which is due to environmental concerns and applies both home and overseas, is first such move by a major Japanese institutional investor, says Reuters. Exceptions would be made where a power station employs carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, the firm said. The move comes as Japan’s heatwave pushes temperature to record high 41.1C, as reported in a separate Reuters story. Carbon Brief looked at Japan’s high use of coal in an in-depth profile of the country published last month.

The Guardian reports that 60% of public aid for energy projects was spent on fossil fuels between 2014 and 2016, according to a new analysis from Oil Change International. This compares with just 18% on renewables, the report says. The report said governments were moving away from fossil fuels at home but continued to fund such projects in Africa, where communities are experiencing the worst impact from climate change, the Guardian adds. Less than 2% of aid to Africa’s energy sector went to renewables or small-scale de-centralised energy schemes, the report showed.

Rolls-Royce has said it will shut down its project to develop small nuclear reactors (SMRs) unless the government makes a long-term commitment to the technology, the Financial Times reports. Warren East, the firm’s chief executive, told the FT that Rolls Royce had already significantly scaled back investment to just a few salaries. He said: “Obviously, we would love to keep the project alive so we will do it as cleanly as we possibly can . . . shutting down as much of the activity as we can shut down without killing the capability.” The firm is one of several consortia to have bid in a government-sponsored competition launched in 2015 to find the most viable technology for a new generation of small nuclear power plants, the FT adds. But a nuclear sector deal unveiled last month by the government allocated funding only for more advanced modular reactors (AMRs), even though they are further from becoming commercial.

South London has been hot and dry for so long that strange things are happening, writes Stefano Hatfield in iNews. “So many holes and fissures have opened up in the desert formerly known as my ma’s lawn that it looks lunar.” Forget hosepipe bans, he continues: “you may just have heard of a global heatwave, with record temperatures from Los Angeles to Japan, where 14 people have died”. This month Ouargla, Algeria, hit 51.3C, the highest recorded temperature for Africa, he adds, while 50 wildfires rage in the Swedish Arctic Circle. But Hatfield says he is “puzzled” why are we not more curious about these events “beyond hosepipes, melting roofs and frying eggs on the pavement”. Despite the scientific proof, so many of us choose denial [about climate change], he adds. “Perhaps we simply don’t want to believe we have abused our own planet? Perhaps, as with Brexit, if we put fingers in our ears and shout ‘la la la la la’, everything will be just fine? I have no answers here. I just implore you all to ask more questions. And fast.” Meanwhile, the Observer asks what the cause of the global heatwave is. “We should take care about overstating climate change’s influence for it is equally clear there are also other influences at work,” said Dann Mitchell of Bristol University.

After 40 years of local opposition in Derwent valley in County Durham, open-cast mining by energy company Banks Group began today. In a feature interviewing the protestors and residents who have long opposed the project, the Guardian looks at how the project came about. It also details the failure of a 88,000 strong petition send to then-communities minister Savid Javid calling on him to prevent the mining for environmental and climate change reasons. This week Javid’s successor, James Brokenshire, said he would not intervene. June Davison, a local protestor, says she is shocked at the inconsistency in the government’s approach. “The coal phase-out announcement gave me hope that our valley would be saved. We asked for the government to stop this open-cast extraction in February, before Banks had really started destroying this habitat.”

One quarter of the energy currently used in UK households could be cost effectively saved by 2035, a new study estimates – and this could increase to one half “if allowance is made for falling technology costs and the wider benefits of energy efficiency improvements”. Using UK government criteria for investment appraisal, the researchers show that there is a significant resource of untapped energy-saving opportunities in UK homes. The energy savings have an estimated net present value of £7.5bn, the study finds, with wider benefits of up to £47bn.

Climate change has contributed to a 20% increase in summer rainfall over Central Asia over the last 50 years, a new study finds. In climate model simulations, the observed trend of increasing rainfall is only reproduced when the human influence on global climate is included. Human-induced warming increases the specific humidity over the whole Central Asia, the researchers say, bringing an increase in rainfall in eastern Central Asia (and a decrease in western parts).