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Zia Weise and Louise Guillot, Politico
The European Commission has unveiled proposed legislation to reduce the EU’s carbon footprint by up to 90% by the end of the decade, a “softer target than initially planned”, reports Politico. The commission suggested this target more than a year ago on the basis of advice from its scientific advisors, “envisaging a hard target that, like the bloc’s existing 2030 and 2050 goals, would have to be reached solely through efforts within the EU”, it adds. However, the 2040 emissions-cutting target faced significant pushback from governments, prompting the commission to grant “unprecedented leeway to meet the goal”, the article notes. “Green groups…are furious that it leaves room to count foreign carbon credits, such as planting trees and saving forests, that researchers have often found are ineffective”, reports the Guardian. Some campaigners have welcomed the legislation as a “pivotal step towards addressing the climate crisis”, but lamented “loopholes that would allow for the increased use of carbon credits to meet new targets”, reports BusinessGreen. The commission has proposed that states can use carbon credits purchased for projects outside of Europe for up to 3% of their emissions cuts, reports Le Monde. The European Commission faced pressure from EU member states such as Italy to weaken the goal, as well as France calling for the introduction of “flexibility”, reports Climate Home News. It notes that member states and the European Parliament will now need to sign off on the proposal for it to become the EU’s official goal. Beyond the wider role of carbon credits, heavy industry and domestic airlines will be able to continue counting permanent carbon dioxide removals using carbon capture and storage, reports Euractiv. Separately, Politico reports that European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen has lent “an ear to German industry (again) as climate and trade crunches loom”.
Relatedly, “demand for high quality credits is at an all-time high”, reports BusinessGreen. New data shows increased market activity, with carbon data provider Sylvera finding that the number of credits used to offset emissions in the first half of 2025 has “surged” to 95m, it adds. The Associated Press reports on start-up Gigablue, which recently announced it had sold 200,000 carbon credits, but there are “questions” about its “unproven ocean technology”.
Malu Cursino, BBC News
There is continuing coverage of the heatwave gripping Europe, as “the continent swelters in temperatures topping 40C”, reports BBC News. At least eight people have now died, with the heatwave triggering health alerts and forest fires, reports Al Jazeera. Authorities in Spain’s Catalonia region have said that around 14,000 people have been ordered to stay indoors after two wildfires broke out almost simultaneously, it adds. Two people have died in Catalonia due to the wildfires, reports Reuters. It quotes the fire service, which said in a statement that “the fire was extremely violent and erratic due to storms and strong winds, generating a convection cloud that complicated extinguishing efforts”. On the Greek island of Crete, wildfires are “burning forest land, threatening homes and prompting the evacuation of residents and tourists from at least four settlements on the island”, reports a separate Reuters article. At least 155 firefighters and 38 water trucks and support teams have been deployed to fight the fire in the municipality of Ierapetra at the southeastern coast of the island, it adds. The Daily Mail reports that scientists have blamed climate change for the heatwave, with the Met Office “virtually certain” the 35C temperatures in the UK were caused by global warming. Tagesspiegel reports that Germany experienced its hottest day of the year yesterday, with temperatures reaching nearly 40C. It adds that the record high remains 41.2C, set on July 25, 2019. A Swiss nuclear company has shut down one of its reactors and halved the output of another because of the high temperature of river water at the Beznau power plant, reports the Independent.
As the heatwave moves east, it has triggered a political row in France over air conditioning, reports the Guardian. “The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen seized a canvassing opportunity before the 2027 presidential election, announcing she would launch a ‘grand plan for air conditioning’ for the nation if she won power”, the article notes. The European Parliament’s air conditioning has broken down because of the heat, reports Politico. In France and Germany, red alerts have now been issued as a “lingering high-pressure system – known as a heat dome – keeps much of the continent in the grip of dangerously hot weather”, reports Bloomberg. The New York Times reports on the “economic toll” of the heatwave, as it lowers productivity and keeps “shoppers at bay”.
Hallie Gu, Bloomberg
More heavy rain is expected in the north and northeast China, raising “risks of geological disaster and flooding”, while some areas are “expecting severe thunderstorms or hailstorms and perhaps tornadoes”, according to the [Chinese] weather bureau, Bloomberg reports. It adds that “extreme weather – amplified by climate change – is sweeping the globe…In China, heatwaves and excessive rain have strained power grids and roiled grain production”. State-supporting newspaper Global Times publishes an article under the headline “Beijing issues flood alert amid downpours across North China.” China Youth Daily reports that China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration has urgently “dispatched central disaster relief supplies” to support Henan and Hubei, which were hit by floods recently.
Meanwhile, the Communist party-affiliated newspaper People’s Daily reports that China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has released a report on the “construction of the product carbon footprint management system (2025)”, adding that the establishment of the system has had a “good start” since May 2024. State broadcaster CCTV reports that China’s southern regional electricity market has become more “unified”, representing a “major step” in the “initial establishment of a unified national electricity market”.
Elsewhere, the New York Times reports that US president Donald Trump’s energy policy could “derail renewable energy” in the US, “while China is racing toward the future, the US is at risk of being left behind”. The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that under Trump’s new bill companies with ties to China will be barred from receiving clean-energy tax credits, which is expected to “jeopardise dozens of planned projects and freeze investment in a sector already struggling to decouple from the country”. Zheng Zeguang, China’s ambassador to the UK, calls for “closer cooperation” between China and the UK on the “green transition”, according to state-run newspaper China Daily.
In comment, China Daily publishes an article under the headline: “Scorching heat acute reminder EU should be open to green tech.” It argues that the EU should open its markets to Chinese products, for example, by phasing down tariffs on electric vehicles, as “climate change is not waiting for European factories to catch up”.
Clarín
Clarín covers the “polar wave” affecting Argentina, leading to the coldest day in the country’s capital “over the last 34 years”, with a temperature of -1.9C registered on Wednesday. Nearly the entire country is under red, orange and yellow alerts issued by Argentina’s national weather service. The polar wave has “left 10 deaths, gas outages in certain industries, power outages and 240 trucks stranded in one locality near Chile”, the newspaper adds. La Nación reports the freezing of a river in the province of Río Negro, where temperatures plummeted to -19C. Meanwhile, southern Chile is experiencing “unusual and attributable to climate change” sub-zero temperatures, according to Álvaro González, a professor at Austral University, in an interview with BioBioChile. González says that Chile is experiencing less rainfall and cold temperatures this winter. Conversely, extreme heat has taken its toll in Mexico, Excélsior reports. The newspaper notes that, while some parts of the country face the threat of hurricanes, “11 states have recorded 28 deaths due to heat stroke this heat season, starting from March, and another 935 people have been treated by extreme heat, dehydration and burns”.
In other news from Latin America, Brazil’s ministry of justice and public security has requested 150m reals ($27m) from the Amazon Fund to combat fires in the Cerrado and Pantanal regions, O Globo reports. This “could be the first time the fund has been used for biomes other than the Amazon”, the newspaper highlights. The outlet points out that the country set record wildfires last year, with 30m hectares burned. However, it adds that this year those numbers have decreased.
Elsewhere, Brazil’s government is to delay yet again the launch of the official COP30 accommodation platform as it is working on “final adjustments to ensure the best experience for participants”, Folha de São Paulo reports. The government states it will offer “more affordable prices” of around $100 per night. The government had committed to providing more than 29,000 rooms, 55,000 beds and two cruise ships with a capacity of 6,000 beds, but countries have expressed “concern over the high costs of accommodation during COP30, as well as other logistical issues related to the conference”, the newspaper adds.
Tim Dodd, BBC News
The past two years have seen “some of the most ravaging droughts in recorded history, made worse by climate change”, reports BBC News. A new UN-backed report has described drought as a “silent killer” that "creeps in, drains resources and devastates lives in slow motion", and is exacerbating issues like poverty and ecosystem collapse, it adds. The report covers impacts in Africa, the Mediterranean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, with Somalia highlighted, as an estimated 4.4 million people were facing crisis-level food insecurity in the country at the beginning of the year, the article notes. Governments should be prepared for a "new normal" the report adds, with measures such as stronger early-warning systems, BBC News adds. The Guardian quotes Mark Svoboda, the founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NMDC), and co-author of the UN-backed report, who says: “This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Petra Sorge, Bloomberg
Germany has approved a “controversial” plan to drill for up to 13bn cubic metres of gas in a protected area of the North Sea, aiming to “boost energy security”, reports Bloomberg. The project, part of a treaty with the Netherlands, involves cross-border gas fields yet still requires parliamentary approval, according to the economy ministry, notes Tagesspiegel. Katherina Reiche, German economy minister, is quoted saying: “This strengthens supply security for our neighbours and the European gas market.” It is estimated that the field could supply 4.5-13bn cubic metres of gas, roughly 6-16% of Germany’s 2024 consumption, according to Handelsblatt. However, environmental groups led by Deutsche Umwelthilfe and the island of Borkum have filed a lawsuit at the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony against the project, citing risks to the nearby Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage site. WirtschaftsWoche reports that German environment minister Carsten Schneider says the move sends the “wrong signal”, insisting marine protected areas must not be put at risk by gas drilling. “We will promptly present an updated legal framework,” he said. Reuters notes that while the cross-border treaty allows for cooperation, it does not grant production rights. Final decisions on gas extraction will be made by the western state of Lower Saxony.
Michael Holder, BusinessGreen
UK energy secretary Ed Miliband has “slammed” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for “telling lies” about net-zero, reports BusinessGreen. Speaking at an event, Miliband said: “There are agents of division and misinformation and they want to tell lies. They want to tell lies about the effects of moving to clean energy, they want to tell lies about net-zero and they want to tell lies about what the British people really believe. Don't believe this idea that the country is somehow divided between those who care about the future and the future we leave to people in future generations”, the article quotes him saying.
Elsewhere, there is widespread coverage of a report from the National Energy System Operator (Neso) into the cause of a substation fire that shut Heathrow airport in London earlier this year. The cause was a “preventable” technical fault that National Grid had been aware of for seven years, but failed to fix, reports the Guardian. The Neso report found that the fire that cut power to the airport on 21 March was “most likely” sparked by moisture entering the insulation around wires, it adds. (At the time of the fire, some newspapers and commentators, without evidence, tried to claim it was due to “net-zero”.)
Meanwhile, Glencore is in talks with the UK government over the status of its supply and offtake contract with the insolvent Lindsey oil refinery, reports Reuters. Frontpage coverage of the refinery in the Daily Telegraph states it is in “chaos” after its owner collapsed and there could be disruption to national supplies.
Finally, the Press Association reports that “Labour’s environmental record after one year in office shows ‘glimmers of hope’, but concerns remain over nature and anti-protest policies, g | 