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DeBriefed 31 July 2026: ‘Apocalyptic’ wildfires | Daily Telegraph’s ‘rollercoaster week’ | How heat impacts disabled people

31.07.26
By:
Amy Rushton
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. 
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.

An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

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This week

Europe wildfires

‘APOCALYPTIC’ FIRES: Wildfires raged through much of Europe this week. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated in France, Spain and Italy at the start of the week, said the Guardian. Blazes took off in Greece and Turkey by Thursday, according to Al Jazeera. The UK also faced “apocalyptic” fires in Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park, reported BBC News – and near a nuclear power station in Suffolk, England, said the Guardian.

‘LIFE THREATENED’: The foreign ministers of the UK, France and Spain issued a joint statement saying the fires have illustrated how climate change threatens Europe’s “way of life”, said Politico. Human-caused climate change made the hot and dry conditions fanning Spain’s wildfires 20 times more likely, according to a rapid attribution analysis covered by the Associated Press. The analysis also found that climate change made the fire conditions in France twice as likely, it added.

TELEGRAPH ‘ROLLERCOASTER’: As the fires raged, Carbon Brief’s editor Leo Hickman noted on Bluesky how the UK’s Daily Telegraph had a “rollercoaster week of comment pieces about climate change”. In a departure from its usual climate-sceptic commentary, the right-wing newspaper published two prominent op-eds calling for conservatives to recognise the dangers of climate change. This included one piece by columnist Tim Stanley, and a second comment article, aimed specifically at Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, by world economy editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

SCEPTIC RETORT: A wave of new climate-sceptic comment pieces followed. This included a piece from its Sunday edition editor calling for people to give up tackling climate change and “embrace the Mediterranean lifestyle” and a column by an author with ties to a climate-sceptic thinktank claiming that “renewables [the world’s largest source of electricity] are useless”. The week ended with a piece by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, defending her anti-net-zero stance in response to Evans-Pritchard’s article.

Extreme weather in Asia 

TORRENTIAL RAIN: Typhoon Noul prompted the evacuation of more than 715,000 people in southern China, as the region was hit by strong winds and torrential rain, reported Al Jazeera. Elsewhere in Asia, the Guardian reported flash floods hit Afghanistan, with at least 31 people dead and hundreds missing, while a record 412.3mm of rainfall in 24 hours forced people to flee the city of Chattogram in Bangladesh. The Times of India reported that a “warming climate” is making monsoon season “more intense and erratic”.

HEAT MORTALITY: The Guardian reported that India’s heat mortality has also risen, with the country’s poorest workers hit the hardest. A new report covered by the newspaper found that people from poorer, rural areas who work out in the open were likely to be missed from official death-toll estimates. One heatstroke expert told the outlet: “India could face an epidemic of heatstroke, if we do not prepare ourselves in time.”

Around the world

  • NEW GAS: New Zealand has granted its first offshore petroleum permit since the government reversed a ban on exploration last year, reported the New Zealand Herald.
  • CLIMATE ACTION: China released a new “five-year plan” indicating it will take a “more important role in steering the global campaign to tackle climate change”, according to Bloomberg. Carbon Brief explored a separate new five-year plan on the country’s renewable-energy targets.
  • BANK PROFITS: Barclays advised its clients on how to profit from the El Niño weather event, urging them to see the disruption it will cause as a potential “money-maker”, revealed the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.  
  • FUNDING FOSSIL FUELS: Up to a third of the EU’s industrial decarbonisation fund was spent on fossil fuels and other “climate-unfriendly programmes”, said a report covered by Euractiv.

87%

The number of nations that missed the deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Latest climate research

  • Climate change is driving a “shift” in childhood malaria risk across Africa | Nature, covered by Carbon Brief
  • Climate change can “enhance the success” of invasive species in the ocean | Global Change Biology
  • Almond trees in Afghanistan are blooming an average of two weeks earlier than they were in 1980 – “a clear deviation from historical patterns in response to climate change” | International Journal of Biometeorology

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The area burned by wildfires in the EU by July of this year is second only to that of 2022. Analysis by Carbon Brief using data from the European Forest Fire Information System found that there had been a sharp increase in wildfires in July across France and Spain, contrary to narratives shared by prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators on social media in recent days.

Spotlight

How heatwaves impact disabled people

This week, Carbon Brief speaks to disability advocates about the disproportionate impact of extreme heat on disabled people in the UK. 

As the UK witnesses some of its hottest days on record, the impact of extreme heat on health, public services and mortality has been discussed widely.

During the May and June heatwaves alone, there were an estimated 2,877 heat-associated deaths, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), almost twice as high as the annual total for 2025.

But one trend is invisible in the published UKHSA figures – people living with disabilities are disproportionately likely to be impacted by heatwaves.

Some 75% of disabled people are “significantly affected” by hot weather, according to a report from disability equality charity Scope, which surveyed respondents on factors such as the financial burden of extreme heat, access to care services and impact on medications.

Dan White is the campaigns and policy officer for Disability Rights UK.

He told Carbon Brief about the myriad of complications extreme heat can cause. These range from medications affecting the body’s ability to regulate temperature, to the challenges of communicating overheating for non-verbal people and pavements being too hot for guide dog’s paws. He said:

“My daughter has a disability and we’re reliant on equipment and support services…when heatwaves cause power outages, I have to get her up and sit with her until the power comes on because her ventilator doesn’t have a backup battery.

“It’s just a cornucopia of people’s inability to keep cool, communicate, and a lack of functioning services.”

Rising heat 

The government’s annual heat-mortality report shows higher deaths associated with people aged above 75 and those living in care homes.

Some 64% of people aged 85 or older in the UK have reported a disability. Disabled people are more likely to be living in care facilities.

Heatwaves can “amplify existing health issues and cement health injustice”, Emma de Saram, a climate and health activist, told Carbon Brief. She said:  

“I’m type 1 diabetic, my insulin has to be kept below a certain temperature, so the heat just adds another layer of stress. The world disabled people are already living in is inaccessible – and now it’s on fire.”

Energy inequality 

Financial issues can exacerbate the impact of heatwaves. 

The poverty rate for disabled adults is 28% as of 2024, around eight percentage points higher than those who are not disabled, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. 

Disabled people are more likely to live in poor quality housing that is poorly ventilated or has limited green space.

Scope’s Disability Price Tag report finds that it costs a disabled household an extra £1,095 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. A total of 68% of the disabled people surveyed said they limit their use of fans and cooling equipment because of cost.

White told Carbon Brief:

“We find a lot of disabled people struggle with fuel poverty. Where their energy usage is so much higher because they already have to power mobility and care equipment, they can’t leave to get access to cooler environments or even keep their homes at a safe temperature because of financial worry.”

Unequal access 

The impact of extreme heat on disabled people is an issue of rights and accessibility rather than inherent vulnerability, said White. 

For example, public information on heatwaves is not always available in accessible formats, such as British sign language, preventing some disabled people from receiving warnings, he said, adding: 

“We talk about excess heat deaths, but could these have been prevented by accessible information and guidance?

“Give us a seat at the table to help co-design policies, because if you make a climate policy for disabled people, you’ve effectively made it universal for everybody in the long term.”

Watch, read, listen

‘AMERICA FIRST’: Grist reported on how the Trump administration’s “makeover” of a global hunger programme meant abandoning agricultural and climate research.

FUNNY BUSINESS: The Guardian explored whether stand-up comedy can alleviate climate anxiety.

PROTESTS: The BBC Climate Question podcast discussed the origins of the environmental movement and if climate protests can make a difference.

Coming up

  • 27 July-1 August: Meeting of the scientific and technical subsidiary body of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 4-12 August: Meeting of the subsidiary body on implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Nairobi, Kenya

Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to [email protected].

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