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Stefano Porciello, Euractiv
Euractiv is among a number of outlets to cover a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report on how to limit “overshoot” of the internationally agreed 1.5C warming target. The report, it says, warns that the world must “rapidly change course as it drifts beyond the global warming limit”. It quotes UN secretary general António Guterres as saying the world “must make the overshoot as small and short as possible” by “limiting how high temperatures rise and how long they remain above 1.5C”. The Guardian says the report states that “overshooting” of the 1.5C goal was now “unavoidable” and likely to happen “in a few years”. The best “hope for humanity”, according to the report, is to adopt an “overshoot, peak and decline” pathway that requires “immediate and sustained greenhouse gas emissions cuts combined with steps to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere”, the newspaper continues. Crucially, the report warns that average global temperatures could only be returned to 1.5C if temperature rise is limited to 1.8C, it says. The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Le Monde, Climate Home News and Inside Climate News also cover the “limiting overshoot” report.
Rick Noack, Reuters
As the death toll from last week’s Himalayan floods reached 1,000, a UN official warned that the region faces “severe risks” from future glacial floods, says Reuters. The newswire continues that “not only is the hydroelectric power that many depend on threatened, but entire riverbanks where millions live might become effectively uninhabitable”. The newswire continues that researchers in 2020 identified 47 potentially dangerous glacial lakes in Nepal, China and India, with the real number “estimated to be significantly higher”. Kanni Wignaraja, an assistant secretary general at the UN, tells Reuters that the population at risk from such events "goes into the millions". In a separate story, Reuters notes that the floods “wiped out a tenth of Nepal's electricity generation capacity last week” and “have cast doubt on the country's ambitious hydropower expansion plans”.
The warning comes a day after the Nepalese prime minister said in a post on social media that the floods “were driven by the climate crisis and demanded international action as the Himalayan country assessed damage”, reports the Independent. In a separate story, the Independent notes that the floods come after the Trump administration cut a major US aid programme to Nepal that monitored climate risks including glacier collapses. Glaciologist Dr Ashim Sattar tells the Guardian that “every Himalayan state has hazards” and climate change underscores the need for early warning systems that “should be for the people and by the people.”
MORE ON HIMALAYAN FLOODS
There is continuing coverage of the rising death toll from the floods and the ongoing search for workers trapped in hydropower electricity tunnels in Nepal, including in Le Monde, the Guardian, Daily Mail and Reuters. The Associated Press reports on how the floods come as climate change “brings more disasters” to the Himalayas. The Times of India says the floods could have been driven by “global warming and poor monitoring”. The New York Times explores how China had been building defences for glacial lake outbursts, rather than the glacial collapse that caused the Nepal-China mudslide. An editorial in the South China Morning Post says the disaster “must galvanise climate change cooperation”. In an interview published by the Kathmandu Post, Nepal’s foreign minister Shishir Kanal says that “major industrial emitters”, such as the US, China and India, “have a historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal”. Agence France-Presse: “Tibet activists accuse China of downplaying floods.” The Financial Times looks at how Nepal’s prime minister – “a 36-year-old rapper who had not held national office until earlier this year” – is responding to the crisis.
Marc Levy, The Associated Press
There is continuing coverage of a US federal judge’s decision to strike down an attempt by the state of New York’s to make fossil fuel-producing industries pay into a $75bn climate damages fund. The Associated Press says the judge ruled that the 2024 “climate superfund” law “reaches beyond a state’s responsibility and into an area of federal interest”. A spokesperson for the administration said “taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for damages caused by polluters” and that the administration was reviewing the decision to determine its next steps. The Guardian notes that the case was brought by “Republican-led states and oil interests”. Agence France-Presse says that “experts are split over what the ruling means for other states – including Vermont, which has a similar law – and others where such measures have been proposed”.
MORE ON US
US oil giant Chevron is planning to expand its operations in Venezuela, just days after Trump announced a deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits, according to Associated Press. An Inside Climate News analysis of US Environmental Protection Agency data reveals that lawsuits against polluters have “fallen off a cliff under the Trump administration”. Nikkei Asia: “UN climate fund wants Asia to step up support after US withdrawal.”
Pippa Neill, The Guardian
There is widespread coverage of provisional Met Office data – trailed yesterday in BBC News – which shows that 2026’s summer was the hottest since records began, including on the frontpage of the Guardian. The newspaper reports that an average mean UK temperature of 16.5C made this summer “provisionally the warmest on record as well as the warmest season in a series going back to 1884”. It covers an attribution study from the climate and weather agency which shows the season’s mean temperature was “130 times more likely due to the climate crisis”. The Financial Times quotes Amy Doherty, Met Office science manager, as saying “the figures…knock the infamous summer of 1976 down to seventh for average summer mean temperature, with the top-five warmest summers all occurring since 2003”. Reuters notes the temperatures came during a “season of intense heat and drought”. The Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, Independent, Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and Sky News also cover the story, which makes multiple frontpages.
MORE ON UK
In his first address to the House of Commons as prime minister, Andy Burnham “directly linked” the Nepal and China floods to “the climate crisis” and confirmed his attendance of the COP31 summit in Antalya, according to Politico. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said the UK should "learn to adapt to the changing climate, rather than arrogantly think you can stop the power of the sun”, reports BBC News. The Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank has called on Burnham to support “cross-channel energy cooperation”, including by linking the UK and EU emissions trading systems, says Politico. The Times: “Heat pump applications mired in ‘sludge’ of paperwork.” The Times says that, by next year, “more than a third” of the UK’s offshore wind capacity will be produced by sites “linked to Chinese companies”. The BBC News’ Radio 4 “Rare Earth” programme speaks to climate experts about what a Burnham government means for the environment.
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