Oil and gas major BP predicts that the world’s demand for oil will peak next year, ending rising global carbon emissions by the mid-2020s as wind and solar power continue to surge, reports the Guardian. The company’s latest outlook report concludes that oil use will increase by about 2m barrels a day to peak at about 102m in 2025 across both of its forecasts – one that tracks the world current trajectory and one that shows the world meeting global net-zero targets by 2050. The outlook suggests that increasing efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles and a rapid rise in electric cars and trucks could drive oil demand to peak in the middle of this decade, reports the Times. This means that the share of oil in the overall global energy mix would decrease from about a third in 2022 to about a quarter in 2050 under the current trajectory and to a little over 10% under the net-zero scenario, the article adds. A separate Times article notes that the BP outlook report also suggests that progress on improving energy efficiency has been “disappointing”, only improving at around a quarter of the rate currently being targeted by world leaders. Energy efficiency has fallen by an annual average of just over 1% over recent years, slower than in the previous decade and much weaker than the 4% annual rate targeted within the energy efficiency pledge at the last UN climate summit, it adds. Under the current trajectory scenario, gas demand continues to grow over the coming decades, expanding by around a fifth by 2050, reports Reuters. This trend is driven by a more than 50% demand increase in emerging economies, excluding China, in particular in the power and industrialised sectors, it adds. Under the net-zero scenario, gas demand peaks by the middle of this decade and is around half of its 2022 level by 2050, it notes. This story is also covered by the Financial Times and Sky News among others.

The Conservative government’s watering down of “green pledges” was a “catastrophic misjudgment” that contributed to their record-breaking election defeat, reports the HuffPost UK. Research by More in Common found that the u-turn on net-zero policies (covered by Carbon Brief at the time) boosted support for Labour and Liberal Democrats, while failing to convince Reform UK supporters to switch to the Conservatives, it adds. Climate change was one of the top three reasons given by Labour and Liberal Democrat voters for supporting the parties, above housing and crime, adds the Daily Mail. The analysis from More in Common finds that, among those who viewed climate change as less important, they still linked increasing renewable energy generation to reducing the cost of living, the biggest factor driving voting at the election, it continues. More than 70% of those polled backed Labour’s plans for the state-run company GB Energy, designed to help fund the transition to cleaner power, it adds. Both Conservative and Reform votes also said a state-run firm would be “good for the country”, with 56% and 59% of voters from those parties backing it, respectively, the article notes.

In other UK news, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced its “five main policy priorities for change” under the new Labour government, including protecting nature, food system and communities from the impacts of climate change, reports Edie. The department’s priorities include cleaning up British waters, creating a roadmap to move to a zero-waste economy, supporting farmers, ensuring nature’s recovery and protecting communities from flooding, it adds. The new energy secretary Ed Miliband has also unveiled six priorities for his department, including boosting energy security and cutting bills, setting up GB Energy and creating jobs amongst others, reports Sky News in an article heavily based on quotes taken from Carbon Brief’s webinar earlier this week. (Carbon Brief has asked a range of experts what they think the Labour government’s priorities should be to tackle climate change.) 

Nearly two million households are still without power in Texas, two days after Hurricane Beryl hit the state, leaving “many to swelter in the baking summer heat without air conditioning”, reports the Financial Times. The hurricane caused widespread damage when it hit the US Gulf Coast on Monday, triggering extensive flooding and downing power lines, with at least 10 people killed, it adds. According to preliminary figures from AccuWeather, Hurricane Beryl caused up to $32bn worth of damages and losses in the US, reports the Independent.

Elsewhere, Las Vegas set a new record on Wednesday, as temperatures climbed to 46C (115F) for the fifth consecutive day, beating a four-day run in July 2005, reports the Guardian. The “brutal milestone marks yet another record for the Nevada desert city this week”, the article adds, after Las Vegas hit an all-time high of 48.8C (120F) on Sunday. “This is the most extreme heatwave in the history of record-keeping in Las Vegas since 1937,” meteorologist John Adair, a veteran of three decades at the National Weather Service office in southern Nevada, tells the publication. In California, medical helicopters are now having to cancel flights due to excessive heat, reports the Washington Post. Sometimes flights can be rerouted to land in an airport where there are fewer obstacles, as landing in a confined area can require more engine power, which is harder in high temperatures, it explains. But “when temperatures pass 122F, which they already have in parts of California this year, the helicopters can not fly”, the article adds. A separate piece in the Washington Post reports that heat is suspected of killing at least 28 people in the US in the past week. The number, based on preliminary reports from California, Oregon and Arizona, is expected to grow as authorities continue to assess the impact of the heatwave that began last week, it adds.

In other US news, attorneys for Republican officials have pressed Montana’s Supreme Court to overturn a landmark climate ruling that said the state was violating residents’ constitutional right to a clean environment by allowing oil, gas and coal projects without considering global warming, reports Newsday. The ruling last year by a state judge “was considered a breakthrough in attempts by young environmentalists and their attorneys to use courts to leverage action on climate change”, it adds.

Azerbaijan, the hosts of this year’s COP29 climate summit, has announced plans to raise “at least” $500m for “green projects”, reports the Financial Times. The petrostate is planning to launch the “climate investment fund for future” with a contribution from the state oil company Socar, plus seek to raise further capital from other fossil fuel producers, the article says. The amount “pales in comparison to the $30bn fund announced by the United Arab Emirates at the last COP28 in Dubai, with aims to mobilise $250bn of private sector investment for climate action by 2030”, the FT notes. COP29 officials have said the Azeri fund will form a starting point for fossil fuel companies to contribute, the article continues. Any returns of investments from its fund will be cycled back into it and Azeri officials are currently discussing whether 50% of the capital should be ring-fenced for developing countries worst hit by extreme weather events, it adds. “We will, once the concept is ready, reach out to the parties we think could be potential contributors…We will be enquiring of all countries that produce and use fossil fuels to be part of the initiative,” an official tells the FT.

Economic newspaper Nikkei Asia reports that, despite the rapid growth of “new energy” vehicles (NEVs) in China, the country’s lithium producers are “feeling financial pain” due to the “substantial decline” in the price of the key ingredient for NEV batteries. It adds that “Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium, two [major Chinese producers], separately announced Tuesday night that they slipped deep into the red in the first six months of this year”. Business newspaper Yicai reports that Chinese solar manufacturer Longi Green Energy Technology has seen its market capitalisation fall below 100bn yuan ($13.8bn) as the country’s solar sector continues to decline. The outlet adds that Longi was, until now, the only Chinese solar company to have remained above the 100bn yuan threshold. Economic newswire Jiemian reports that, in the first half of 2024, 10 solar companies lost a combined 20bn yuan ($2.8bn) following a “continuous drop in solar industry chain prices”. Business newspaper Caixin says that China’s “decades-long drive” to reform its power market has reached “a key juncture”, adding that “industry insiders are expecting a more significant reform plan to be unveiled at a key policy meeting…scheduled for 15-18 July”.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that China has opened a “tit-for-tat investigation” into whether the EU’s various trade moves against Chinese companies across “a range of sectors”, including solar and wind power, could “constitute an illegal barrier to free trade”. State news agency Xinhua reports that China’s Ministry of Commerce says that the investigation “is set to conclude by 10 January 2025”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) also covers the story, saying that China’s probe has “added heat to an already broiling trade dispute”. According to a Reuters poll, China’s exports likely grew 8% year-on-year by value, “at the fastest pace” in 15 months in June, as “manufacturers front-load shipments in anticipation of tariffs from a growing number of the country’s major export markets”. Energy newspaper BJX News carries a commentary saying Chinese battery manufacturers will “face competitive pressures from multiple fronts” as the US continues to “impose protective policies”. Yicai reports that NEV battery maker Envision is building a “lithium iron phosphate battery gigafactory” in Spain. German vice chancellor Robert Habeck says that “he wants to prevent China from gaining control over wind-turbine data”, Bloomberg reports. 

Finally, the Washington Post reports that “Beijing has made adapting to bouts of extreme weather a greater policy priority”, with weather officials and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) issuing an “unusually direct warning about the intensifying heat and rainfall”. Dialogue Earth says that “climate litigation has become a mechanism” to compel governments to enact stronger climate action, adding that legal improvement in China “signals” the Chinese government’s “dedication to fulfilling its dual-carbon pledge by empowering climate litigators”. Xinhua reports that Chinese authorities have made “all-out” efforts in emergency response to floods.

The government of the Brazilian state Pará will renovate 11 state schools in Belém to create “dormitories” for delegates attending next year’s COP30, Folha de São Paulo reports. The newspaper adds that, amid concerns that the rainforest city does not have the hotel capacity to host a climate COP, six other schools are under construction, or in the “bidding process”, and that the 17 schools are expected to accommodate around 5,000 people. 

In other Latin American news, El Espectador covers the latest deforestation report from Colombia’s ministry of environment which shows the country has the lowest forest loss record for 23 years. Minister of environment Susana Muhamad says that, in 2023, deforestation fell 36% across the country and 38% in the Colombian Amazon. Four provinces that account for the Amazon “deforestation arc” saw a decrease, the outlet adds. The Guardian also covers the story. In a separate article, El Espectador adds that the EU will give €10.5m for tackling deforestation in Colombia.

Meanwhile, La Nación reports that, according to Argentina’s national weather system, Buenos Aires recorded the coldest temperature in 14 years due to a “polar wave”. The city reached a minimum temperature of -1.5C and six provinces are in “red alert for extreme temperatures”, including Buenos Aires. Santiago and a wider area of Chile are also expecting the coldest days of the year and “even the coldest sequence of days in many years”, according to Chile’s weather directorate, La Tercera reports.

One of the few points of agreement between the Conservative and Labour parties during the UK election campaign was the need to build huge amounts of infrastructure if the country is to transition to net-zero electricity, writes Adam Bell, director of policy at Stonehaven and former head of energy strategy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in Politics Home. Outgoing energy secretary Claire Coutinho set out two paths for the country to reach net-zero, one leading to a “net-zero Leviathan of central planning”, the other to “greater uncertainty but a stronger role for markets and consumers”, writes Bell. “Labour’s 2030 pledge will require the full weight of Leviathan”, he argues, which will incur costs, but lead to gas savings that will, ultimately, make power cheaper. 

In other UK comment, Prospect has brought together reactions from a range of commentators including economist Mariana Mazzucato, who argues that the “climate depends on the new government’s commitment to change more than just who is in power”. In the Times, economics editor at Sky News Ed Conway writes that “allowing cheap electric cars to flood the British market comes with both economic costs and security concerns”. In the Sun, climate-sceptic columnist Rod Liddle identifies “clean and almost renewable energy” as one of the key priorities for Keir Starmer’s new government, adding: “Nuclear power is the greenest and most reliable form of energy and will help us reduce our carbon emissions without putting the burden on the poorest of us under some ludicrous net-zero scheme.” Allister Heath, the climate-sceptic editor of the Sunday Telegraph, writes in his column for the Daily Telegraph that the Conservative party “blundered into an extreme version of net-zero and then declined to build the grid infrastructure and nuclear power stations required to prevent blackouts”.

An editorial in Nature Climate Change explores how small island states and territories have been leading climate action. Island states and territories have “not only been subject to massive environmental changes, they have also been pivotal in advancing climate action globally”, the editorial argues, noting that such states were promoting a 1.5C target long before COP21 in Paris. Their leadership has been seen both at home and on the international stage, as well as in many different scientific fields, it adds. “They could have referred to their small contribution to emissions, but instead they stepped up and advanced climate action on all scales, from local initiatives to global cooperation,” the editorial concludes.

New research assesses a range of ethical issues around loss and damage “in the context of climate change”. Examples of climate loss and damage – a term referring to the serious impacts climate change already has on people  – have become “abundant” in recent years, the researchers write. They note that the topic lacks a “systematic approach to the ethical issues”. The study discusses what should count as loss and damage and how “access to justice” should be granted. Loss and damage is often “noneconomic and consists in the loss of a people’s cultural heritage, language [and] social structures”, according to the researchers. They conclude: “More discussion is required concerning who can be affected by loss and damage, whether this is only possible for human beings or the impacts of climate change on other species should also be considered.” 

Grape growers in parts of the Mediterranean should consider reducing their crop’s exposure to sun and optimising water usage to help vineyards adapt to climate change, according to new research. The researchers aim to understand how climate change will impact wine-growing areas in Portugal, Italy, Turkey and Morocco. Using scenarios under moderate (RCP4.5) and very high emissions (RCP8.5), the researchers compare the main climate-related challenges these locations will face and assess the “best strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change at the national and regional levels”. The conclusions of the study “may support local growers” in optimising “sustainable production under changing climates”, the researchers write.