What mattered this week

UK: Serious problems with milk, chips & lettuce. Climate is literally eating your lunch.

Got milk? No. Britain’s dairy 240m litres down this summer, and output still below last year. (The Grocer; BBC)

Chips & lettuce too? Drought took 3m tonnes off the UK & European potato crop, one of the smallest harvests on record. Heat loving aphids chewed every lettuce from East Anglia to Lancashire. (ECIU; Telegraph)

Can’t we just import it? Yes- for now. A quarter of what Britain eats comes from the parts of the world this El Niño is about to sit on. Rice, coffee, chocolate. (ECIU).

Read more: The Grocer on the milk; ECIU on the £17bn of imports in the firing line

Australia: more renewables that they can use. And running out of diesel 😱

Wow? 80% of the main grid’s demand came from renewables at lunchtime last weekend, a record, with ROOFTOP solar alone covering more than half of it. (RenewEconomy) They switched off more than half the available wind, because there was nowhere to put it 🤯.

But no fossils? Australia is the world’s biggest importer of diesel. Had about 26 days stock when this crisis started. Rationing “a matter of weeks” away (ABC) (SBS; ASPI)

What happens next? Everything goes electric, obv.

Read more: ASPI on Australia’s layered fuel vulnerability; pv magazine on the record

Last week, Saudi Arabia cut Europe off oil. This week it launched an electric car

Cut off? Yes, we covered it last week: no Saudi crude for European refiners in October, while the East-West pipeline is repaired. (OilPrice)

And then? On Monday MBS unveiled a Saudi EVs that he designed himself 🤯, built with Foxconn. (Arab News)

A stunt? Saudi is electrifying: Connected 7GW of solar and wind and 14GWh of batteries SO FAR THIS YEAR. Massive. (Zawya)

Meaning? The world’s biggest oil exporter decided it wants to run its own country on electricity. 🧐

Read more: AGBI on Ceer

One thing to worry about

Papua’s “eternal snow” is 450 km from the equator. In the 19th century it covered nearly 1,900 hectares.

Today, 16 hectares.

Gone within a year or two, say the people measuring it 😢. (BBC)

One thing to be optimistic about

Charging your EV at home overnight costs about 2.3p a mile.

Diesel, at £1.96 a litre, is 21p a mile.

Nine times more. (Carbon Brief)

If you’ve got more time…

What happens when climate starts affecting your home?

Emily Atkin looked at what’s happening in Miami condos in FEMA’s highest flood zone: The open houses at the edge of disaster (Heated).

• The sea around Miami is up an inch since 2019.

• Seawater is rising through the bedrock towards building foundations.

• In 2021 a beachfront condo collapsed and killed 98 people, “severe seawater penetration” a contributing factor

• A study in 2024 found dozens of luxury towers sinking at “unexpected” rates.

$307bn of Miami homes face severe or extreme flood risk, more than any housing market in America.

What agents told her: Brickell Key “does not flood” (the tennis court had puddles in it). “Hasn’t happened yet, so you’ll be ok.” “You’re kind of in the safe zone.”

How do you protect a home here? “Really expensive insurance. That’s the answer.”

Caveat emptor.