Daily Briefing: El Niño record | ‘Rein in’ AI | Renewable growth ‘must double’

22.09.26

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News

‘Jaw-dropping’ El Niño bursts through temperature record months before peak

Damian Carrington, The Guardian

Sea-surface temperatures “at the heart of” the El Niño weather pattern have reached a new record-high months before they are expected to peak, reports the Guardian on its frontpage, citing Carbon Brief analysis by climate science contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather. The newspaper quotes Hausfather saying the latest figures are “mind-blowing”. It adds: “The current El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating. This double whammy means 2027 is expected to ‘blow apart’ previous records and become the hottest year ever recorded.” The Associated Press examines the risks posed by El Niño for drought in Asia and global food prices.

MORE ON EXTREME WEATHER

The Guardian: “Babies ‘will face almost twice as much’ extreme fire weather in Europe than great-grandparents.”
Reuters reports that two people have been killed in landslides brought on by torrential rains in a “powerful typhoon” in Japan.
BBC News says of the typhoon that “climate change is not thought to be increasing the number of these storms globally”, but it is making them “more intense”.
The Los Angeles Times: “California declares statewide emergency ahead of projected epic El Niño storms.”
The Associated Press says authorities in Colombia have declared a “public calamity” as a wildfire “burned through mountains” and surrounded a tourist town.

‘Energy-guzzling’ AI must rein in its emissions, says UN climate chief

Lili Pike and Coco Liu, Bloomberg

UN climate chief Simon Stiell has criticised the energy needs and emissions from AI at the start of the UN general assembly and climate week in New York City, says Bloomberg. The outlet quotes Stiell as saying: “Energy guzzling artificial intelligence is driving up planet-heating pollution from coal, oil and gas, while ratcheting up energy costs for households and businesses.” Climate Home News says climate change and the energy transition have risen up the “national security agenda” in New York. The Guardian reports that prime ministers of Australia and Iceland spoke at the opening of the city’s climate week, both discussing the “effects of the climate crisis on their countries, the measures they are taking to transition away from fossil fuels, and their support for other countries to do the same”. The Associated Press also covers the start of the two events.

MORE ON UN

COP31 host Turkey has announced a “climate-responsible AI” pledge, reports the Daily Sabah. Climate Home News says no there are no details “so far”.
COP31 president Murat Kurum has laid out the summit’s action agenda, which Kurum says is based on “dialogue, consensus and action”, reports Reuters.
The Guardian: “[Australian prime minister Anthony] Albanese urges climate action on world stage – but advocates say Australia [is] failing on fossil fuels.”
India Today reports that Nepal’s prime minister will travel to New York to “spotlight Nepal’s flood-linked climate concerns” after the recent Himalayan floods.

Global renewable deployment must double to hit 2030 climate target, report says

Susanna Twidale, Reuters

Reuters covers a new report finding that annual global renewable installations need to more than double in order to meet a pledge to triple total capacity by 2030. It says just over 690 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity was added globally in 2025. The outlet adds that this needs to increase to “roughly 1,200GW on ⁠average, every year through 2030” to meet the pledge, which was part of the formal outcome of the COP28 climate summit in 2023. It says the report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, the COP31 presidency and the Global Renewables Alliance also finds that “nearly $1tn ⁠a year on average is needed in grid investment between 2026 and 2030…up from $525bn in 2025”.

MORE ON ENERGY

Solar and wind power met a record 80.4% of electricity demand in Australia on Saturday, reports the Guardian.
Reuters reports that the European Commission has proposed new rules requiring data centres to disclose their energy and water efficiency.
Reuters says almost 40% of coal-fired power plants in India are “operating with critically low fuel stocks due to a surge in power demand amid ‌hotter-than-usual weather linked to El Niño”.
The Financial Times says French president Emmanuel Macron has called on the EU to take more action to lower energy prices.
Euractiv says a EU commissioner plans to call an emergency meeting of member-state ministers if the energy crisis worsens.

Chinese rare-earth shipments to US drop ahead of Trump-Xi summit

Edward White, Financial Times

Chinese shipments of rare-earth magnets to the US fell 13% to 512 tonnes in August ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, reports the Financial Times. It says the issue of rare earths, crucial to low-carbon technologies, is expected to be a “point of friction” at the leaders’ summit in Washington this week. Reuters quotes experts saying that US president Donald Trump’s “less combative” stance towards China ahead of the meeting is a “sign of Beijing’s growing power thanks to critical minerals”. The newswire says China’s “near-total control of rare-earth minerals” could limit “how much Washington can threaten Beijing”. Bloomberg reports China hopes to “offer more licenses for rare-earth exports as a bargaining chip in talks”, according to an unnamed source. Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the US will take place from Wednesday to Friday this week, according to state news agency Xinhua.

MORE ON CHINA

The NEA said China’s electricity consumption last month rose 1.7%, with peak electricity demand hitting a record high of 1,560GW, reports China Energy Net.
Chinese authorities have urgently allocated 200m yuan ($30m) to support four provinces after days of heavy rainfall, reports Xinhua.
China has issued an initiative aiming to recommend a group of “green and low-carbon” computing facilities with high energy efficiency, according to BJX News.
China is strengthening the oversight of the environmental technology sector to support the development of a “Beautiful China”, reports CCTV.
Bloomberg: “CATL sees limited impact from China’s new battery tax on orders.”

Wildlife will be affected by current drought for years to come, UK government says

Pippa Neill, The Guardian

The UK government says that wildlife in England and Wales will continue to be affected by this summer’s “serious drought” for years, reports the Guardian. The newspaper adds that the National Drought Group says groundwater storage and reservoir levels continue to decline despite recent rain. The “effects on wildlife populations and ecosystems will last for years to come”, the drought group chair, Tony Grayling, tells the newspaper. The Guardian adds: “The lack of rainfall combined with successive heatwaves and new temperature records have placed a significant strain on water supplies…Scientists said this extreme weather was only possible due to the climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels.”

MORE ON UK

The Times and the Press Association cover Institute for Fiscal Studies findings that households could cut energy bills by switching to flexible electricity tariffs. The climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph says: “race to net-zero is driving up bills, warns IFS”.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that several UK insurers are “fuelling the climate crisis while benefiting from a scheme that helps cover their flood losses”.
BusinessGreen covers an open letter from a campaign group warning that “flood-prone communities risk being trapped with uninsurable homes”.
The Independent: “New government-supported loans could make solar panels cheaper to finance.”

Comment

Multilateralism is not idealism, it is a necessity

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, António Costa, William Ruto and Mark Carney, The Financial Times

The presidents of Brazil, Kenya and the European Council and the prime minister of Canada write in the Financial Times about their new initiative called “partners for multilateralism” (P4M). They explain that this aims to create a framework for different countries to build coalitions and “translate shared principles into practical action”. The leaders say the initiative intends to “renew and strengthen the multilateral system, not replace it”. They write: “The climate emergency is going beyond even the most alarming predictions…No country, however powerful, can manage these challenges alone…The question is not whether multilateralism can survive, but how it must evolve to meet the realities of our time.”

MORE COMMENT

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe and sociologist Dana Fisher write in Time: “This summer of disasters has shown us that climate impacts are not political, and it is past time we stopped talking about them as if they were.”
In Dutch outlet NU, climate reporter Jeroen Kraan writes that the Netherlands’ fossil fuel phase-out plan is more accurately a “reflection that could eventually lead to a substantiated phase-out plan”.
Dr Dola Oluteye, a senior fellow in energy and transport policy at University College London, writes in Climate Home News: “Why the global electrification agenda misses the point on Africa’s energy crisis.”
University of Oxford global history professor Peter Frankopan writes in the Daily Mail about the conflict risks arising from the impacts of climate change on shipping routes in the Arctic.
Climate entrepreneur Solitaire Townsend writes in Time: “We have a climate imagination problem.”
Environmentalist Bill McKibben writes about topics, such as AI, being discussed at New York climate week on his Crucial Years substack.

Research

“Flash energy droughts”, caused by prolonged periods of low wind and solar generation, become more frequent and longer-lasting as the planet warms | Nature Climate Change
Across Europe, individuals born in 2025 will face 3.2 additional years of exposure to extreme fire weather, on average, compared to those born in 1950, corresponding to an 84% increase | Environmental Research Letters
As the planet warms, storms will become more frequent along the south-eastern US coast but less frequent along the Gulf coast, including Texas | Geophysical Research Letters