President Donald Trump said at a Texas rally that his administration is terminating a Biden-era rule aimed at cutting methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. He said the change would save $45 billion and unlock 210 million barrels of oil, about ten days of US consumption. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin had previewed the move, including elimination of the Super Emitter Program that forces operators to repair large leaks found by satellites, and looser standards for small wells. Methane accounts for roughly a third of greenhouse gas emissions. It is the latest step in a wider rollback of climate policy.
An oil spill from a tanker damaged near the Strait of Hormuz is spreading along the northern coast of the United Arab Emirates, forcing beach closures in Umm Al Quwain and Sharjah. Satellite images from the EU's Copernicus network dated October 24 show the slick widening toward shore. The ship matches the location and size of Gem No.2, which was hit between October 9 and 10 during a surge of vessel strikes. The Ministry of Climate Change and Environment says containment work is under way. Researchers at Sharjah Marine Science Research Centre say an impact on marine life is inevitable but too early to measure.
The United Nations Environment Programme said in its 2026 Emissions Gap Report that the chance of holding global warming to 1.5C without overshooting has been lost. The report, titled The Point of Return, projects about 2.8C of warming under current policies and 2.6C if every national pledge is delivered, both higher than last year because the United States left the Paris Agreement and historical emissions estimates were revised up. It sets out a lowest-overshoot path peaking at 1.7-1.8C and returning below 1.5C by 2100, which would need emissions to fall about 5.7% a year for a decade and coal use to drop 90% by 2050.
Record heat across Europe this summer caused 50,391 deaths in 854 cities, and 32,619 of those are attributed to the extra heat produced by burning coal, oil and gas, according to a study in the journal Nature Health. That is 71% higher than the previous deadliest summer, 2022, when the same researchers counted 29,480 deaths. More than half of those who died were 85 or older, but more than 800 were between 20 and 44. Italy, France, Spain and Germany recorded the highest tolls. The authors say their figures are underestimates. The authors say the real toll is higher because the count leaves out May.
About 294,000 people in Nepal live in areas of extreme flood risk, according to a study published in Scientific Reports, including 108,000 downstream of glacial lakes that could fail without warning. The research was completed before August's disaster on the Bhote Koshi river, when a rock and ice avalanche off Langtang Lirung sent a debris flow about 120 miles downstream, killing at least 1,455 people and leaving 5,285 missing. The authors found that built-up area within 50 vertical metres of riverbanks grew about 46 percent between 2016 and 2023, driven by tourism, trade routes and hydropower investment.
Fewer than half of the national targets countries set to protect plants, animals and ecosystems are on track, the United Nations said in a report launched in Yerevan, Armenia, as the COP17 biodiversity conference convened. The 2022 Kunming-Montreal framework committed nearly 200 countries to halt nature loss by 2030, including protecting 30% of land and sea. Even if current commitments are met, only 26% of land and 12% of the ocean would be protected, the report found. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the war on nature has not ended. Finance, data and economic incentives are all lagging. Talks run for two weeks and are meant to agree a way to review progress and fund protection in poorer countries.
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific are 6.1F above normal, the highest on record for this point in the year, and NOAA puts the chance of a very strong El Niño at 90% for this autumn and winter. The agency gives a 75% chance the event becomes the largest since 1950. UNICEF says 347 million children in nearly 100 countries live in areas likely to see drier or wetter conditions. Researchers at the University of Chicago estimate the pattern could cause 451,000 excess heat deaths worldwide. The Atlantic hurricane season has been quiet while storms raced across the Pacific. Aid agencies are pre-positioning supplies while the pattern is still building.
The UN Environment Programme's Emissions Gap report says the world will pass 1.5C within a few years, the first edition to call the miss imminent and unavoidable. It reframes the goal as limiting overshoot to 1.7C-1.8C before returning to 1.5C by 2100. That path needs emissions cuts of 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 against 2025 levels, plus a tripling of renewable capacity and a coal phase-out by 2040. Existing pledges deliver only 5-8% by 2030, pointing to peak warming near 2.6C. COP31 opens in Turkey next month.
Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told the Reuters Sustainability Europe conference that global warming is accelerating and that damage to coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest is close to irreversible. He said parts of the Atlantic circulation, including the current that keeps Western Europe mild, are near collapse. The world is on course to exceed 1.5C of warming within a few years, ahead of the COP31 talks that begin on November 9.
A study in Nature Communications finds that Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica could add up to 30 millimetres to global sea level by 2100, roughly twice earlier estimates, even without additional warming. The revised figure accounts for warm seawater reaching several kilometres inland beneath the glacier's floating front, a process most ice-sheet models left out. Thwaites already loses more ice each year than snowfall replaces, and its bed deepens inland. The finding changes flood frequency estimates for coastal cities, ports and roads built near present high tide lines.