In brief | 17 September '26

Euronews: Heat and drought: Why beer at Oktoberfest could soon be in short supply

No hops, no beer: heat and drought are hitting hop fields in Austria and Germany, as well as spring barley for malt. Is a beer shortage looming? Farmers and brewers are testing irrigation and switching to winter barley.

Guardian: Fossil fuel advertising contracts at all-time high in 2026

In year of extreme weather, ad agencies found to be building Big Oil’s image as integral to family life and security

Bloomberg: Mediterranean getting saltier at ‘alarming’ rate as sea heats up

Rising temperatures have coincided with a saltier Mediterranean Sea, as the water separating Europe from North Africa heats up at a faster pace than the global ocean surface, according to a fresh study.

Bloomberg: AI’s climate footprint draws growing concern from asset owners

Asset owners are increasingly concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence on the environment and society, according to a report by Morningstar Inc.

Reuters: Europe EV sales outpace forecasts as BEV share hits 30.5%

Battery-electric vehicle registrations in Europe rose 54.2 percent in August, pushing the market well ahead of forecasts for 2026 as fully electric cars accounted for nearly one ‌in three new vehicles sold.

Reuters: Volkswagen's Seat on the brink as Chinese rivals gain ground

Volkswagen's historic revamp looks set to spell the end of its struggling Spanish marque Seat, potentially making it the first major auto-brand casualty of the rise of Chinese carmakers as experts predict sweeping industry consolidation.

Carbon Brief: Global fossil-fuel emissions set to fall in 2026 amid Hormuz crisis

Global fossil-fuel emissions are set to fall by around 0.5 percent in 2026 amid the fallout from the Hormuz crisis, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

BBC: Climate change played role in Nepal-Tibet flood, study finds

There was "absolutely no doubt that human-induced climate change played a role here in the preconditioning of the disaster", said Dr Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London who co-authored the study.

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