Daily Briefing: Climate action ‘2.8% GDP boost’ | Oil nears $100 | Nepal ‘wake up call’

08.09.26

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Every weekday morning, in time for your morning coffee, Carbon Brief sends out a free email known as the “Daily Briefing” to thousands of subscribers around the world. The email is a digest of the past 24 hours of media coverage related to climate change and energy, as well as our pick of the key studies published in peer-reviewed journals.

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News

Strong economic case for tackling pollution and climate change together, UN finds

Attracta Mooney, The Financial Times

A new report by the UN Environment Programme finds that “tackling air pollution and climate change together would boost global GDP by 2.8% by 2035”, according to the Financial Times. The newspaper continues: “Climate change and air pollution share many of the same drivers, including the burning of fossil fuels as well as some agricultural practices and industrial processes. The report demonstrated that purely using market benefits, the action would create economic value each year, the authors said. Every year of delay had unrecoverable costs.” BusinessGreen also covers the findings.

The Guardian adds that according to a separate report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), “big increases in wildfires and heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis are hindering improvements to air quality around the world”. It quotes Lorenzo Labrador, a scientific officer of the WMO, saying that “air quality and climate cannot be treated as separate subjects; they are deeply intertwined and have to be treated together”. Agence France-Presse also covers the WMO findings.

Oil closes in on $100 as renewed supply crunch looms

Malcolm Moore and Verity Ratcliffe, The Financial Times

Oil prices rose above $98 per barrel yesterday, for the first time since late July, after “hostilities between the US and Iran exacerbated supply concerns”, reports the Financial Times. It continues: “Oil prices fell from an Iran war high of $126 a barrel in late April to just over $70 in early July after a ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran raised hopes of a lasting peace. They have been on a rising trend since, as prospects of peace have been scuppered by fresh hostilities, with analysts raising concerns about supplies as strategic reserves are drawn down.” Al Jazeera reports that “in recent days, strikes escalated in the strait of Hormuz”. Another Financial Times article reports that Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan were hit on Monday and that the damage is “being assessed”. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters also cover rising oil prices.

MORE ON OIL

The Independent carries a warning from Goldman Sachs that “oil prices could surge as high as $120 per barrel if attacks on Middle East shipping do not stop”.
Al Jazeera says: “The average US household has spent $763 extra on fuel in six months, as the US-Israel war on Iran pushes up fuel costs across all 50 states.”
Reuters: “Global diesel supply to stay tight through winter, industry execs say.”
Bloomberg says: “A rebound in Chinese oil buying is driving up the prices of African, Canadian and Latin American crudes as disruptions in the strait of Hormuz see refiners ranging farther afield for alternatives.”
The Financial Times: “Iran to raise petrol prices as US war triggers shortages.”
Reuters: “Russia EV sales double in summer as motorists face fuel shortages.”

China pauses approvals for battery storage manufacturing projects, Cailianshe reports

Reuters

China has “temporarily suspended approvals” for new battery storage manufacturing projects, amid “growing concerns about overcapacity risks in the energy storage sector”, says Reuters, citing a report by Chinese financial news outlet Cailianshe. Separately, China has issued “stricter rules governing automakers’ payments to suppliers”, as the government tries to curb the auto sector’s “bruising price war”, according to Reuters. During the first half of the year, profits at China’s major electric vehicle (EV) battery makers were “nearly double” those of the country’s major automakers, reports the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Meanwhile, CATL’s chief scientist Wu Kai said China’s heavy truck market is “on track to electrify far faster than previously expected, with new-energy models potentially accounting for half of sales by 2028”, reports financial news outlet Caixin. In an interview with Shanghai-based outlet the Paper, Hao Jiming, a professor at Tsinghua University, said that China needs to accelerate the electrification of heavy-duty trucks.

MORE ON CHINA

China issues a five-year “implementation plan” to coordinate the demand for “green electricity” from computing facilities with clean-energy consumption, according to BJX News.
China has allocated 240m yuan to support disaster relief efforts in five southern Chinese provinces in response to floods and geological disasters, reports Xinhua.
A “rapidly strengthening” El Niño event is approaching “super status”, potentially bringing greater climate risks to China in 2027, reports China Daily.
China’s “five-year plan” for its information and communications industry calls for the “green development” of the sector, reports CCTV.
Solar capacity surpassing coal power highlights China’s solar industry advantages and its commitment to the global low-carbon transition, according to People’s Daily. The article was shared by the National Energy Administration.
Financial Times: “EU to table ‘Buy European’ public procurement rules to push out China.”

Nepal says big polluters must ‘wake up’ as it calls for climate compensation over flood disaster

Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian

Nepal is “demanding $20m in climate compensation” for the flooding that recently hit the country, reports the Guardian. Speaking to the newspaper, Nepal’s foreign minister, Shisir Khanal, “was forthright in his call for climate justice and said it was imperative the world’s biggest economies stepped up to help Nepal recover and rebuild after the catastrophic floods”. The outlet continues: “Khanal confirmed that Nepal’s ministry of finance and ministry of environment had written a joint letter to the UN’s fund for responding to loss and damage – which was set up in 2022 in line with the Paris climate agreement – to request $20m in climate-related damages…Khanal acknowledged that the compensation amount Nepal has requested from the UN was ‘obviously not nearly enough to cover the damage that we have sustained’. According to some estimates, the total damage caused by the floods will be upwards of $5bn, though Khanal said it could be even higher.”

MORE ON GLACIAL FLOODS

Experts called for strengthening early assessment of glacier instability and closing monitoring gaps at source in response to extreme disasters amid climate change, says CGTN.
The People’s Daily: “Is the mudslide along the China-Nepal border linked to climate change?”

French winemakers forecast 30-year low harvest after severe drought and heat

Kim Willsher, The Guardian

French winemakers are expected to report a 30-year low in wine production this year, following a summer of “severe drought and heatwaves”, reports the Guardian. The newspaper says initial estimates point to a 6% drop on last year, with output 17% below the 2021-25 average. Reuters reports that output from the Champagne region is expected to be half of 2025 levels. It adds: “France recorded its hottest summer yet in 2026, as scientists say human-made climate change makes extreme weather events more intense and more frequent and Europe experiences the fastest warming of any continent.” Politico says: “The brutal summer weather pulled harvests dramatically forward. Most French vineyards began picking in August after exceptionally high temperatures accelerated ripening.” Another Reuters article says that due to warming, “maize, rapeseed and winter wheat matured and were harvested in Europe much earlier in 2026 than at the turn of the century”.

MORE ON EUROPE

Euractiv reports that “the EU executive has proposed five new taxes”, including a tax based on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the emissions trading system (ETS), to “help fund the bloc’s seven-year budget”.
Reuters says “the largest carbon-capture facility in Europe opened in the Netherlands on Monday”.
Euractiv: “EU capitals weigh response to Trump’s deep-sea mining push.”
Reuters: “Italy has recorded this year its hottest summer since 1950, with an average temperature of 24.3C.”
Euractiv: “Belgian energy island shows cost of path to cheaper power.”
The Times of India: “Germany turned apartment balconies into tiny solar power plants; more than 550,000 systems are now helping renters generate their own electricity.”

Comment

We’re the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix. The heat crisis has us all facing the same question

Emmanuel Grégoire, Giuseppe Sala and Kate Gallego, The Guardian

Emmanuel Grégoire, Giuseppe Sala and Kate Gallego, the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix, write in the Guardian: “As mayors, we are confronting the same question: how do you protect millions of people when extreme heat is no longer an exceptional event, but an increasingly familiar part of summer.” They say that “Phoenix established one of the world’s first city offices dedicated to heat response and mitigation”, noting measures in the city including cooling centres and “shade plans”. They continue: “Planting trees, cooling schools, redesigning streets, improving buildings and expanding early warning systems are often described as climate policies. They are also public health measures, investments in local economies and practical improvements that make cities more liveable throughout the year.” They conclude: “The climate crisis is redefining what our definition of ‘normal’ is at a rapid rate. Our ability to learn from one another must move even faster.”

MORE COMMENT

An editorial in the Times says: “Britain desperately requires new clean sources of power to reduce its damaging dependence on imported natural gas.”
Bloomberg opinion columnist Mihir Sharma, citing Carbon Brief, says the UK’s opposition Conservatives have made “fantastical claims” about how to make electricity cheap, but nevertheless calls for the government to pursue cheap power.
Conservative shadow energy secretary Andrew Bowie writes in Conservative Home under the headline: “The Climate Change Act is cooking the carbon books and damaging Britain – it’s got to go.”
An editorial in the Guardian on skin cancer says that “new climate risks bring with them new health risks”.
The Financial Times Lex column says: “Pricey oil is laying the groundwork for its own decline.”
The Daily Telegraph gives space to Julian Jessop, a fellow of the climate-sceptic thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs, to promote the body’s false claims about why the UK faces high energy costs. [Expensive gas is the main reason.]

Research

Extreme heat is consistently associated with increases in reported crimes in China | Communications Earth & Environment
Cities focus more on heat management strategies than heat mitigation, with emergency preparedness and heat education far outpacing urban greening, according to a global assessment of heat action plans | npj Climate Action
UK workers “perceive their health to be harmed by anomalously high temperatures” | Climatic Change