In brief | 15 July ‘26

DW: Ahr Valley floods: Five years on, the trauma remains

Five years after devastating floods killed more than 130 people in Germany’s Ahr Valley, many physical scars have faded. But for survivors and the local community, the trauma and loss remain.

The Guardian: ‘Unprecedented’ changes in UK climate are normalising extremes, report says

Annual State of the UK Climate analysis finds last four years in UK are in top five hottest on record.

Copernicus: Intense heatwave brings hottest June for western Europe as the month ranks second warmest globally

The heatwave also led England and France to experience their warmest June on record, while the UK as a whole, Germany and the Netherlands recorded their second-warmest June, with some locations seeing all-time temperature records broken.

Euronews: EU pushes to triple energy storage as renewable power goes to waste

EU energy ministers signed the first-ever tripartite agreement to boost the bloc’s energy storage capacity.

Kiel Institute: No trade for decarbonization. Public resistance to cross-border electricity and co₂-infrastructure

Citizens across Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK consistently rate cross-border electricity and carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure projects more negatively than identical domestic projects, a robust "trade penalty".