Debriefed 17 July 2026: UK ‘firewave’ | Fossil-fuelled heat deaths | London’s Natural History Museum spotlights climate

Carbon Brief's weekly climate roundup leads with what the Financial Times has dubbed a "firewave" across the UK — twenty-five non-consecutive days at thirty degrees Celsius or above, nine of them past thirty-four, straining emergency services as wildfires burned across Europe and North America. The Met Office says weather once considered extreme is becoming the new normal, with last year's record UK heat expected to be surpassed within a few years. Elsewhere in the briefing, Carbon Brief notes the International Energy Agency now expects global oil demand to fall this year for the first time since twenty twenty, while the European Commission has set a target for electricity to make up forty-six percent of the bloc's energy consumption by twenty forty.

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