Daily Briefing: Solar ‘surpasses coal’ in China | UK’s ‘hottest’ summer | ‘Hot dang right-wingers’

01.09.26

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News

More than 1,000 dead from catastrophic Nepal-China floods

Shristi Kafle and Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press

There is extensive continuing coverage of last week’s flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet which has killed more than 1,000 people and left more than 4,400 missing, according to the Associated Press. Another Associated Press article says rescuers are trying to free “hundreds of workers believed to be trapped in tunnels at hydropower sites” buried in mud. Nepal’s finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, tells Reuters that the country may need $4-5bn to rebuild. The newswire notes this is “equal to nearly a tenth of the economy”. The New York Times says a senior Nepali official “explicitly asserted that human-caused climate had been a factor in last week’s horrific glacial collapse and flooding”. The newspaper reports that the official says Nepal has “requested urgent financial help” from a UN climate-disaster recovery fund.

Agence France-Presse says Nepal’s foreign minister and the UN climate chief “warned of the growing threat from global warming to the Himalayas”. The Independent says: “Flash floods have devastated Nepal. Climate change could make them routine.” Another Independent article examines whether climate change and other factors are making the Himalayas a “more dangerous place to live”. The New York Times speaks to local trekking guides and climbers about climate impacts in the Himalayas. ABC News explores whether parts of the Himalayas could “become too dangerous for people to live in”. CNN says the “devastation could be a reality check for governments driving a boom in dams, tunnels, highways, railways and bridges across the Himalayas”.

The Associated Press looks at the impacts on hydropower in Nepal. The Times of India speaks to a scientist about the flooding and the role of climate change. The Associated Press says: “Nepal flood survivors fear loss of culture and community.” Reuters reports that officials from Nepal and China “discussed strengthening cooperation to monitor and respond to floods, weather and glacier-related hazards” at a meeting in May. Xinhua covers comments at a Tibetan local government press conference that the “disaster was caused by glacial destabilisation resulting from the long-term effects of global warming”. China Environment News also covers the comments. The People’s Daily reports that, according to experts, the mudslide is “related to global warming”.

Solar surpasses coal as China’s top source of power capacity

Felix Tam, Bloomberg

Bloomberg reports that “solar panels are now China’s top source of power capacity, surpassing coal in a key milestone for the country’s green-energy boom”. The outlet says solar capacity hit 1,286 gigawatts by the end of July this year, which is 31.5% of installed power generation, citing data from the country’s National Energy Administration which was first reported by China Central Television. Solar generation increased 15.5% year-on-year in the first seven months of 2026, adds Bloomberg. The outlet continues: “The solar milestone is happening even as China’s record pace of renewable installations has slowed significantly this year, after a policy overhaul ended guaranteed revenue for wind and solar projects.”

MORE ON CHINA

The Financial Times reports that profits at BYD, the “world’s largest electric-vehicle maker”, have increased for the first time in five quarters.
The Global Times says Chinese researchers have found that “climate warming is accelerating the release of mercury long trapped in glaciers and other frozen environments, with mercury released from melting glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula surging 550% since the pre-industrial period”.

US: At least two dead in Grand Canyon flooding; Park Service says 20-plus may be missing

Julia Harte and Steve Gorman, Reuters

Reuters reports that at least two people have been killed and up to 20 are unaccounted for after flash flooding in the Grand Canyon in the US over the weekend. The newswire says: “Heavy rains on Saturday sent a cascade of mud, boulders and debris rushing through Bright Angel Creek…sweeping away trails, foot bridges and other infrastructure.” The Associated Press adds that more than 60 people were airlifted from the canyon due to the flood. The Guardian says the flood “was likely driven by a confluence of climate factors, including drought, wildfire scarring and warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can supercharge storms”.

Trump says US to take control of 65bn barrels of Venezuelan oil

Alex Rogers, Geoff Dyer, Ana Rodríguez Brazón, Joe Daniels and Jamie Smyth, The Financial Times

The Financial Times reports that US president Donald Trump says the country has “struck a deal to gain majority control of more than 65bn barrels of oil in Venezuela”. The Associated Press says the deal “could give the US access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost”. The newswire notes that Trump has described it as the “biggest oil deal in world history” on social media. Reuters says experts and lawyers are “puzzled” over the deal. The Financial Times adds that it has been “denounced by both sides of Venezuelan politics”. Reuters says Trump claims the US would use the oil to “replenish the strategic petroleum reserve, which has been drawn down sharply in recent years “. The Financial Times says it “may not succeed in attracting investment from US groups and could destabilise [Venezuela’s] interim president”. The Associated Press looks at “what is known and unknown” about the agreement.

MORE ON US

Reuters: “California sues Trump administration over offshore wind lease cancellation.”
The Associated Press: “Colorado River plan to cut water amid drought brings uncertainty for cities and farmers.”
The Associated Press: “The Earth is sizzling, but climate isn’t a hot topic for Democrats in this year’s campaigns.”
The Guardian: “Flooding devastated swathes of Indiana, but response is hampered by politics.”
Reuters: “New York cannot enforce $75bn climate ‘superfund’ law, US judge rules.”
Bloomberg: “US battery installs to hit record in 2026, industry report says.”

UN talks in Mongolia expose growing drought crisis as climate impacts worsen

Sibi Arasu, The Associated Press

UN desertification talks ended in Mongolia on Friday “without resolving one of the talks’ key issues – whether to create a legally binding global drought agreement”, reports the Associated Press. The newswire says the decision has been postponed until the next round of negotiations in Egypt in 2028, after previously being deferred by talks in 2024. Climate Home News says the “effort to adopt a protocol, led by Africa” has been “resisted…mainly by developed countries, which argue that a legally weaker alternative – a framework – would be faster and cheaper to set up”. Euronews also covers the outcome of the COP17 talks. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin has a detailed summary of the talks.

Disasters to cost world $450bn a year from climate change and development

Lee Harris and Eva Xiao, Financial Times

“Natural catastrophes” are expected to “cost the world $450bn in a typical year”, according to a new forecast covered by the Financial Times, with less than half of those losses covered by insurance. The newspaper adds: “As much as 62% of global losses from natural disasters are uninsured, according to new research from risk-modelling firm Verisk, leaving homes, businesses and governments facing about $279bn in uninsured losses in an average year, and far more in the most disastrous years. The growing price tag reflects the mounting toll of climate change and urban expansion, which has put more property at risk, as well as the rising price of residential construction, which in the US has outpaced inflation.”

Summer 2026 expected to be declared UK’s hottest on record

Ben Rich and Justin Rowlatt, BBC News

BBC News says the Met Office is due to confirm today that this summer was the hottest in the UK since records began in 1884. The broadcaster says: “Provisional figures for the months of June, July and August are due to be released…and are likely to reveal that mean temperatures – which include daytime and overnight values – have broken the previous record, set just last year.” It adds that these figures align with evidence showing summers are getting hotter “as a result of human-induced climate change”.

MORE ON UK

The Guardian: “Labour rejects Zack Polanski’s call to ‘slam brakes’ on building AI datacentres.”
The Times: “BP dropped as Science Museum sponsor after retreat from renewables.”
The Sunday Telegraph reports on its frontpage that chancellor John Healey is “considering a windfall tax on banks and oil companies in his first budget”. Another Sunday Telegraph article says “energy chiefs clai[m] this would destroy investment and accelerate job losses”.
The Daily Telegraph reports that prime minister Andy Burnham has “shelved plans to levy eco charges on waste incinerator sites and ports as he focuses on cutting the cost of living”.
The Scotsman: “Warning Scottish floating wind projects could be ‘delayed or cancelled’ under energy plan.”
The Guardian: “Cross-party talks needed to tackle climate crisis, say Lib Dems.”
The Times says a new thinktank called Project Tempo claims the “government can cut household energy bills by making old wind, solar and nuclear plants hand back some of their revenues from carbon tax windfalls”.

Comment

Nepal-Tibet flood: this is the cost of not acting in the face of the climate crisis

Sunil Acharya, The Guardian

A number of comment articles focus on the still-unravelling impacts of the deadly flash flood in Nepal and Tibet. Sunil Acharya, a climate policy and just-transition specialist based in Kathmandu, writes in the Guardian that the “catastrophic” flood is “what the cost of delaying global climate action looks like”. He adds: “Nepal’s flash floods expose something more fundamental: the problem is not the absence of a warning system – it is a climate crisis that is producing hazards that behave differently from those the systems were designed to detect.”

Carbon Brief contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather explains on the Climate Brink substack: “Any formal attribution of this specific collapse to climate change is premature…[But] the collapse happened on a mountain that has warmed rapidly for decades, immediately after four consecutive summers that all rank among the five warmest in at least 86 years and in a valley that has been losing ice at an accelerating rate.” Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik writes: “The Nepal floods seem a world away – but make no mistake, climate breakdown will affect us all.” Manjeet Dhakal, the lead advisor to the chair of the Least Developed Countries group, writes on the Backchannel substack that the flood “must lead to real action” at the COP31 climate summit in November. Dikshya Subedi, a climate activist based in Kathmandu, tells Al Jazeera that Nepal “urgently needs to set up early warning systems, monitoring and safe shelters”. Bloomberg columnist David Fickling writes: “To avert flood disasters, Nepal needs more giant dams.”

MORE COMMENT

The Financial Times Lex column focuses on the impacts of climate “volatility” on businesses.
Jamie Smyth, the Financial Times US energy editor, writes about oil and gas employment levels falling in the US under the Trump administration.
Alison Reeve, energy and climate change programme director at the Grattan Institute in Australia, says in the Guardian: “The datacentre power spat highlights a hidden truth: we’re not building renewables fast enough to meet our needs.” David Wallace-Wells focuses on the scale of datacentre backlash in the US in the New York Times.
Dominic O’Connell, a contributor at the Times, writes that “subtle changes to environmental metrics are widespread among major companies and collectively they are damaging the public’s trust in net-zero”.
On the Comment is Freed substack, writer Sam Freedman discusses the changing tactics of climate sceptics.
A Guardian editorial says it is “common sense” for Europe to “secure essential supply chains” of rare-earth minerals.
In the Wall Street Journal, climate-sceptic author Stephen Einhorn describes the term “extreme weather” as a “scare tactic, pure politics, yet we pretend otherwise”. The same newspaper also provides yet another platform to climate-sceptic commentator Bjorn Lomborg.

The hot dang right-wingers of oil-rich Texas love solar and wind power – here’s why their electricity bills are so low

Boris Johnson, The Daily Mail

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson writes in his weekly Daily Mail column that it “drives [him] nuts” that the UK is producing “prodigious quantities of clean, green electricity” and yet domestic prices continue to rise. He says: “There are some on the right of politics who think we should just get back to oil, gas, coal and frack the bejeezus out of Lincolnshire, whatever the people of Lincolnshire may think”. He discusses successful renewable programmes in the US state of Texas, saying: “The answer is not to scrap wind, solar and other renewables…[It] is to adopt proper Conservative principles and let the price of this amazing new renewable supply be determined by the market.” He concludes: “So, I say to my fellow Conservatives – get real. Get with the hot dang right-wingers of Texas. Get the best out of Britain’s amazing potential for offshore wind power. Get rid of this crazy one-size-fits-all pricing system.”

MORE UK COMMENT

Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch criticises prime minister Andy Burnham’s oil and gas decision-making in the Sunday Express, writing: “We are all worried about climate change, but delaying a decision till it’s [sic] looks less bad is just not serious.”
In the Economist, climate physics professor Tim Palmer writes: “The world may have less time than it thinks on climate change.”
An editorial in the Times notes that Claire Coutinho has been as shadow energy secretary by “Andrew Bowie, a Scottish MP with a keen interest in North Sea oil and gas”.
Climate-sceptic “independent energy consultant” Kathryn Porter writes in the Daily Telegraph about the UK’s reliance on Norway for electricity imports. In another article for the Daily Telegraph, Porter claims: “Britain’s green taxes are economic vandalism.”
In the Daily Mail, former cricketer and crossbench peer Ian Botham continues to promote misleading claims about how rewilding are “fuelling UK wildfires”.
Harvey Jones, personal finance editor at the climate-sceptic Daily Express, writes: “Ed Miliband’s energy secretary legacy is about to cost us billions.”

Research

There is a “misrepresentation” of the human climate fingerprint in Trump’s 2025 climate report | Earth’s Future
Climate change is associated with crop declines in China over the past 40 years of 5% for wheat, 15% for rice, 21% for soybean and 11% for maize | Climatic Change
There are “mounting damage and losses” in the US from “post-wildfire flash floods and debris flows” | Communications Earth & Environment

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