Last week’s heatwave across western Europe shattered national June records and set new all-time highs. The UK recorded a provisional high of 37.7C at Lingwood in Norfolk on Friday 27 June, smashing the previous June record of 35.6C, set in 1976. Such a margin is exceptionally rare: temperature records are typically broken by 0.1C or 0.2C, not a remarkable 2.1C. A boy cools off in a Berlin fountain. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Germany reached 41.7C in Coschen on 28 of June, breaking its all-time record for a third consecutive day. The…
Tag: Environment
Weather tracker: Heatwave on course to tip temperatures over 40C in Germany and Poland
Temperatures are forecast to rise dramatically in parts of central and northern Europe this weekend as the intense heatwave continues. In Germany and Poland, highs up to or exceeding 40C (104F) are expected on both Saturday and Sunday, days after swathes of France experienced similar extreme temperatures. The Austrian Grand Prix, taking place this weekend in Spielberg, has declared a heat hazard, the first race to do so this season. Temperatures are expected to rise into the low 30s celsius during the race, almost 10C warmer than usual for the…
EV prices in UK and EU not likely to dive due to Chinese rivalry, says Xpeng boss
Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said. Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China. Chinese carmakers have rapidly risen to dominate the global EV industry, helped by massive government subsidies and lower labour costs than…
World’s first wind-powered underwater datacentre starts operating in China
The world’s first wind-powered underwater datacentre has started operations off the coast of Shanghai, as China presses forwards with solutions for energy challenges created by the country’s artificial intelligence boom. The Shanghai Lingang undersea datacentre demonstration project, which launched in May, has a capacity of 24 megawatts. It is a joint effort between HiCloud Technology and China Communications Construction, a state-owned company. Located more than 6 miles (10km) off the coast of Shanghai, the datacentre is submerged 10 metres below the surface of the water and is powered by a…
‘Unpredictable and extreme’: Asia braces for El Niño
The UN has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the raised global temperatures and weather extremes it brings. The powerful natural weather pattern has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday. Experts say what is particularly concerning is that El Niño is unfolding against the backdrop of human-driven climate change, meaning there is the potential for its impacts to be supercharged. Asia is predicted to be one of…
UK car sales hit post-Covid high for May as Chinese EV makers gain ground
British car sales rose in May to their strongest level for the month since before the Covid pandemic, driven in part by strong growth from the Chinese manufacturers BYD and Chery. Car registrations rose by 7% to 160,662 during the month, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group. Sales of battery electric cars rose the fastest, accounting for more than 27% of the market. Chery sold 8,200 cars during May across its Chery, Jaecoo and Omoda brands, while BYD sold 5,200. Over…
Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push
In the middle of 2019, London was sweltering through a heatwave. Temperature records tumbled. Frail, ill and elderly people died in their hundreds. In a city not built for heat, trains were brought to a halt. Railway lines threatened to buckle and sagging power lines caused spot fires along the tracks. Across the channel, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany also hit record temperatures. During the hottest week in late July, the then global chief executive of one of the world’s worst polluters was preparing to take the stage at a…
BHP quietly scrapped plan to build Pilbara plant that would have drastically cut emissions
BHP quietly dumped plans for an iron ore processing facility that would have cut emissions drastically, despite internally rating it as having “excellent social value” and being “well-aligned” to its shareholder-endorsed climate plan and decarbonisation targets. In 2025 the mining giant was well advanced in its plans to build a beneficiation plant near its Jimblebar open-cut mine in the Pilbara, which would greatly improve the purity and quality of its iron ore. BHP knew higher quality iron ore was desired by steelmakers across the globe, including in China, where government…
Slow-moving bands of heavy rain trigger flooding and landslides in parts of China
Heavy, prolonged rainfall in southern and central China has resulted in weather warnings for flash flooding, landslides and waterlogging. The band of rainfall spanned 1,000km (620 miles) and steadily moved eastwards across the regions on Tuesday. It was a slow-moving band of rain, formed from the convergence of multiple bands originating from the Bay of Bengal, South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Coupled with low wind speeds, high daily and hourly rainfall totals have been recorded, with as much as 75mm locally in Hunan, 85mm in Anhui in a…
Torrential rain and floods kill at least 25 people in southern and central China – video
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes, with heavy rain expected to continue across southern and central parts of the country – including Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan provinces – with a high risk of further landslides and flash floods The Guardian