Oil giant BP has seen a drop in profits from $8.5bn in the second quarter last year to $2.6bn this year, blaming the wider oil-and-gas market which has shifted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in energy prices, the Guardian reports. Despite this fall in profits, the newspaper says the news has “angered climate campaigners” as “the climate crisis triggers extreme heatwaves around the world”. It says campaigners have accused oil companies of making “obscene” profits at the expense of the environment and people struggling during a cost-of-living crisis. The Daily Telegraph says the “disappointing” profits were lower than the $3.5bn that analysts had been expecting, echoing similarly low numbers reported by rival Shell last week. BP’s chief executive Bernard Looney said the numbers reflected lower profit margins at the company’s refining operations, due to work being carried out. Even so, the Financial Times reports that BP “surprised investors” by increasing the dividend by 10% and announcing more share buybacks. According to the newspaper, Looney was positive about the future for fossil fuels, describing demand for oil as “incredibly strong”, with “constructive” prices expected in the year ahead. S&P Global notes that Looney also said oil prices will likely be supported by growing demand, greater OPEC+ discipline and slowing US output growth in the short and medium term. 

City AM states that BP has already “watered down” its climate pledges, adding that the news about the oil firm making more profits and treating shareholder dividends as its “first priority” prompted more questions about its commitment to decarbonisation. It cites research by thinktanks the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Common Wealth, which have calculated that for every £1 spent on low-carbon investments globally, BP gave shareholders £9 in buybacks. The Daily Telegraph has another piece citing comments by Looney in which he suggests BP will not invest in low-carbon energy unless projects are sufficiently profitable. “What I can tell you categorically is that our returns threshold is sacrosanct – we will not develop projects that don’t meet our returns threshold,” he tells the newspaper. According to Sky News, Labour has responded to the BP announcement by calling on the government to fix the “gaping loopholes” in its windfall tax on oil-and-gas profits, rather than handing energy firms “billions of taxpayer subsidy”. 

More than 600 scientists have written to UK prime minister Rishi Sunak “in protest at recent watering down of climate policies”, according to BusinessGreen. It says the letter urges Sunak to “rethink the government’s controversial plans” to issue licences for “hundreds” of new fossil fuel projects. Meanwhile, Sunak has insisted his plans to “max out” the UK’s oil-and-gas reserves are sensible as he faces a growing backlash for seemingly threatening the nation’s progress towards net-zero emissions, the Press Association reports. “I think it’s evidently more sensible to get [fossil fuels] from here at home”, rather than from other countries, he said, according to the article. This comes as energy security and net-zero secretary Grant Shapps convenes a meeting of energy companies at Downing Street, according to another Press Association article. Among those in attendance will be EDF, SSE, Shell and BP, which “collectively have multi-billion pound plans to invest in low and zero-carbon projects”, as well as fossil fuels. ITV News quotes influential economist Lord Nicholas Stern, who says “issuing more North Sea licences will do next to nothing for security or for world prices…Indeed, by increasing the supply of oil and gas you increase consumption and worsen climate change”.

The Daily Mail has a frontpage “exclusive” story stating that Just Stop Oil activists have been recorded “boasting” that their tactics have shaped Labour policy. Activist Larch Maxey said Labour “suddenly shifted” to objecting to new North Sea oil and gas projects after Just Stop Oil blocked London roads for weeks. Meanwhile, the Financial Times says the government is set to endorse plans “intended to halve the 14 years it currently takes on average to deliver the big electricity transmission projects needed to overhaul the UK’s energy system”.

UK business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch has told cabinet colleagues that the electric vehicle targets being imposed on the car industry could damage investment in the UK, the Times reports. The Daily Telegraph also reports the story, stating that car manufacturers are “warning they will not be able to hit a requirement that 22% of new vehicles they sell in 2024 must be zero-emission models that are completely electric”. Both articles cite reporting by Politico. A spokesperson tells the outlet: “If major car companies employing thousands of people are saying that there’s a problem, then it’s [Badenoch’s] job to look at ways to ease that problem.”

Meanwhile, some of the UK’s right-leaning newspapers continue to publish articles pushing back against the nation’s climate goals and, specifically, its electric car targets. The Sun says that 30 “top politicians” have backed its “Give Us A Brake campaign” to “end the war on motorists and delay the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars”. It cites MPs from the climate-sceptic Net Zero Scrutiny Group and the New Conservatives as being backers of the campaign. The Daily Mail reports that Ken McMeikan, head of service station operator Moto, said there was a “major, major problem” getting enough power for electric chargers “amid concerns the 2030 ban on new diesel and petrol sales will put pressure on infrastructure”.

The state-run industry newspaper China Electric Power News reports that, according to the China National Energy Administration’s (NEA) data for the first half of 2023, domestic production of raw coal, crude oil and natural gas “steadily increased, with year-on-year growth rates of 4.4%, 2.1%, and 5.4% respectively”. During this period, the new installed capacity of renewable energy nationwide reached 109 gigawatts (GW), a year-on-year growth of 98.3%, adds the outlet. The South China Morning Post also cites figures by the NEA, saying the wind power utilisation nationwide reached 96.7%, and the solar power generation utilisation rate reached 98.2% in the first half of 2023. The state-run newspaper China Daily covers the same dataset and reports that “the installed capacity of new energy storage projects that were put into operation during the first half of this year in China has reached 8,630GW, reaching a ‘new high’”.

Meanwhile, another article by South China Morning Post writes that, according to Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), “despite overcapacity, low profitability and China’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions”, the steel industry in China has invested approximately “$100bn in new coal-based iron and steel capacity since 2021”. A third report by the China Electric Power News says that the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, issued a policy document to encourage the purchases of new energy cars (EVs), including in rural areas. 

In other China news, an executive meeting of the State Council hosted by premier Li Keqiang yesterday approved six nuclear power units, reports the Chinese outlet Jiemian. The meeting stressed that nuclear power development should “proceed in an orderly manner under strict regulation and with an absolute focus on safety”. The Chinese outlet the Paper covers the same news, saying that “zero-carbon emissions, stable output and partial peak-shaving capability” of nuclear power are “indispensable” for China to achieve its “dual-carbon targets”, especially for “coastal economically developed provinces”. Bloomberg says that the move comes as the country “continues to expand the world’s biggest pipeline of new atomic energy projects”.

Elsewhere, BBC News reports that “at least 11 people have died and 13 others are missing in torrential rains in Beijing” as China prepares for “the third typhoon in as many weeks”. The state news agency Xinhua reports that Chinese president Xi Jinping issued “important instructions on flood prevention and disaster relief work” to protect people.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced it will allow climate activists to “make their voices heard” and peacefully assemble at this year’s COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai, Al Jazeera reports. Official permission is required for demonstrations in the oil-rich nation, but the government effectively bans protests the authorities consider disruptive, according to the news website. 

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on leaked documents that show a list of “touchy and sensitive issues” for the UAE. Among these topics are the “increase in [fossil fuel] production capacity v climate ambition” and the fact that COP28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, is also the chief executive of the UAE national oil company.

Iran has announced a two-day nationwide shutdown due to “unprecedented heat”, which will see governmental offices, banks and schools all closing, reports Sky News. The outlet notes that “many cities and towns across Iran have sweltered for days in heat as high as 40C (104F), with the mercury rising to 50C (122F) in the south-west city of Ahvaz”. The shutdown will start today, the outlet continues, adding that “the health ministry said hospitals will be on high alert, as it warned the elderly and people with health conditions to stay indoors”.

Meanwhile, in the US, Axios says that Phoenix has become “the first major city in the country to reach an average monthly temperature higher than 100F [38C]”. In Texas, Reuters reports that demand for power “hit a record high [yesterday] for the second day in a row and the seventh time this summer as homes and businesses kept air conditioners cranked up to escape a lingering heatwave”. BBC News also reports on the “dangerous reality of a Texas summer”, while the Guardian reports that experts have warned the US could see “a record number of heat-related deaths this year…amid a spike in hospitalisations from collapsing workers”.

UK newspapers are once again filled with commentary about the government’s plans to licence more drilling for fossil fuels. In his column for the Guardian, George Monbiot takes aim at prime minister Rishi Sunak and the new licences he announced earlier in the week. He also criticises the pledge of more investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS), which “has been the magic fix for climate breakdown promised by successive UK governments for 20 years – and never delivered”. Monbiot says it is “no coincidence” the two issues were announced together as CCS is used to “justify the granting of more oil-and-gas licences”. He also says the government has upset the UK’s carbon market by “flooding the UK market with pollution permits, triggering a collapse in the price of carbon”. Monbiot says “there was once a widespread belief (which some of us cautioned against) that governments would step up when – and only when – disaster struck”. He says Sunak has taken these actions merely to “buy himself a few more months of political survival”. An analysis piece in the Guardian by Sandra Laville explains why CCS “will not solve the climate crisis any time soon”. 

Writing for the Independent, carbon footprint researcher Prof Mike Berners-Lee asks why the government is promoting more fossil fuels even as the planet faces record-breaking temperatures, devastating wildfires and threats to global food security. “It looks as though the government is putting the short-term economic interests of oil and gas companies above the survivability of its own citizens. In my view, it is using weak arguments of ‘energy security’ and ‘economic growth’ to pander to its vested interests,” he writes. Lara Williams in Bloomberg says Sunak has become the “wrong kind of climate radical”. She says: “It takes some astonishing mental gymnastics to believe that increasing production of fossil fuels is good for the climate. But that’s the message [Sunak] is selling with his approval of 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences.” It cites analysis by Carbon Brief, which “shows that the UK would actually have greater energy security under a Labour government, thanks to its pledge to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030”. Meanwhile, an editorial in the Daily Mirror points to oil major BP’s £2bn in profits over the second quarter of the year. “As extreme heatwaves rage around the globe, transitioning to a future in which we don’t literally burn the world won’t be easy. But the costs of failing would be far higher,” it says.

Daily Telegraph columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard mounts a forceful attack on the UK government’s climate policy with an article titled: “Britain’s pathetic defeatists are cowering as China runs away with the clean-tech revolution.” Unlike most of the others opining on the week’s developments, Evans-Pritchard says he has “no problem with [the government’s] confetti of drilling licences for oil and gas. It is better to produce gas in the North Sea rather than to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) derived from fracking in West Texas.” He says the UK will struggle to attract investment anyway, especially as Labour have pledged to avoid new oil licences if they gain power. “My concern is that this government is losing the plot on the much more important future of clean tech, carelessly undermining the greatest British success story of the last 15 years,” the business columnist continues. He says advances in this area are like an “unstoppable global juggernaut” and they do not “require lavish state spending”. Yet “the more that the British establishment succeeds in keeping the old order going for a bit longer by sending the wrong signals, the greater the damage to UK’s clean-tech leadership”.

The UK’s right-leaning newspapers continue their campaigning against the nation’s climate policies. In an editorial, the Daily Mail asks why Sunak has not yet abandoned the plan to ban sales of new petrol-and-diesel cars from 2030. “Yes, eco-vehicles are the future. But the cut-off date is unfeasible. It will clobber drivers and harm the economy,” it says. The editorial also takes the opportunity to take a swipe at Labour leader Keir Starmer and his “preposterous virtue-signalling”, which “has left him in the pocket” of climate protesters. “Could a man of such dreadful judgement really be trusted in No10?” it asks. A Sun editorial says former Conservative chancellor Philip Hammond is “entirely right” to say politicians are not being honest with the British people about “the true costs of net-zero”. It claims the price of getting to an emissions-free UK by 2050 “will be astronomical – at least £1tn”. [In fact, the transition to net-zero is expected to save people money in the coming decades. Analysis commissioned for the government earlier in the year estimated that the average household stands to save up to £6,000 by 2050 if current net-zero policies are implemented.]

Yet, elsewhere, writers argue against such thinking. Hugo Rifkind in the Times has an article titled: “Going green doesn’t have to hurt this much.” He writes: “How I would love…to hear politicians muster the same angry passion in favour of cycle lanes as they seem to manage against badly designed low-traffic neighbourhoods. To fume about deaths from air pollution with the fervour they deploy about the costs of schemes designed to reduce them.” In City AM, research economist Ben Ramanauskas pushes back against the prime minister’s professed pro-car stance. “Cars take up space on the road which creates congestion meaning that people spend less time earning money and living their lives as they would like. Moreover, cars – especially the way they are often parked – create barriers for people with mobility issues, thereby curtailing their freedom,” he says.

Grant Shapps, the UK’s energy security and net-zero secretary, has a more positive outlook on the nation’s energy policies than much of the commentariat in a piece for the Daily Telegraph. He says “under this Conservative government, the North Sea will continue to be a central part of our energy security, which is why we’ve announced plans to unlock hundreds of new oil and gas licences”, adding that “continued licencing rounds will become the new normal because just stopping oil makes zero sense”. He accuses Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow net-zero secretary Ed Miliband of “surrender[ing] their party to a mob of dubious eco-zealots”. The article comes as he convenes a summit of major energy companies at Downing Street. Shapps says: “Our approach to energy security and net-zero is clear. We will achieve both, but we will do so in a way that improves people’s lives instead of destroying their livelihoods.” (The column refers to Shapps merely as “energy secretary” rather than his full title of “energy security and net-zero secretary”.) He also takes the opportunity to promote the government’s backing for “tough new laws that make it a criminal offence to interfere with critical energy infrastructure such as oil refineries”. (See Carbon Brief’s factcheck about Shapps’s many recent false claims about Labour and North Sea oil.)

In the Evening Standard, columnist Matthew D’Ancona says Sunak’s “climate cowardice” should give Labour leader Keir Starmer a chance to take action on climate. “At present, the Labour leader remains paralysed by what he imagines is the lesson of Uxbridge: the Tories campaigned on Ulez and won; ergo he must distance himself from greenery. But this is an absurdly general conclusion to draw from a highly specific by-election result,” he writes. Similarly, Michael Jacobs, former special adviser to UK Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, has a letter in the Financial Times urging Starmer to “define himself as the pro-climate-action leader”.

Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh has a pessimistic view of the latest developments in UK climate politics, in a piece titled: “The beginning of the end of Britain’s net-zero consensus.” He says people in the future will see the by-election in Uxbridge – won by the Conservatives as they pushed against the Ulez (Ultra Low Emission Zone) for cars backed by Labour mayor Sadiq Khan – as the start of this trend. “None of this is written with glee. The politics, not the intrinsic rightness, of net-zero, is the subject of this column. And those politics seem untenable. The one thing holding net-zero together is the stigma attached to coming out against it (Sunak, notice, still won’t do that) but this needn’t last,” Ganesh writes.

Climate change is causing rainfall to increase over the rolling sand hills of north-western India and Pakistan, a new study finds. This could see the “demise” of desert regions, but potentially aid an agricultural boon for local people, the researchers say. The study uses a combination of data records and climate modelling to show that mean rainfall over the semi-arid north-west parts of India and Pakistan increased by 10%-50% from 1901 to 2015 and is expected to increase by 50%-200% under moderate greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change could be fuelling a westward expansion of the Indian monsoon, it adds. The authors say: “Harvesting the increased rainfall has the potential for significant increase in food productivity bringing in transformative changes in the socio-economic condition of people of the region.” However, they also note that people may need to prepare for more climate extremes, such as heavy rainfall and flooding.

In an academic letter, researchers examine how social media was used to document the impacts of Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which devastated Madagascar, Mozambique and most parts of Zimbabwe and southern Malawi earlier this year. The authors explain: “With Cyclone Freddy, we observed that, in Malawi, information about damages related to disasters and response measures taken has been widely shared through social media platforms, especially WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook.” Analysing posts on these social networks could “present significant potential” for helping communities to “build back better” after disasters, the authors say.