Monday briefing: ‘We can’t afford to wait’

Top story: ‘This is the moment’

Hello, Warren Murray back with you for the weekday mornings.

The fires, floods and extreme weather of recent months are a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold, scientists say. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will today publish a landmark report, the most comprehensive assessment yet, less than three months before the vital Cop26 UN talks in Glasgow.

The IPCC’s work has shown that the 2020s are a crucial decade, in which greenhouse gas emissions must be halved in order to limit heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. In recent months there have been fires, heatwaves and devastating floods. Scientists warn that this may become the norm unless climate breakdown can be stopped. These latest findings represent eight years of work by leading scientists, finalised on Saturday night after an intense two weeks of online discussion and review by experts around the world.

Alok Sharma, the UK minister who will preside over the November Cop26 talks, said on Saturday: “We can’t afford to wait two years, five years, 10 years – this is the moment.” Rachel Kennerley, an international climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The international community must rapidly deliver the speed and scale of the action required to avoid catastrophic climate change. It’s time to end our reliance on dirty gas, coal and oil, and invest in green jobs and building the zero-carbon future we so urgently need.” We will have more coverage of the IPCC report as it is released in the coming hours.

Spare jabs – The UK is on course to “hoard” up to 210m coronavirus vaccines by the end of the year, research suggests. The leftover jabs could help inoculate that many people in the world’s 10 least vaccinated countries, campaign group Global Justice Now says. The government wants to roll out boosters from next month but the World Health Organization wants instead to prioritise vaccinating 10% of every country’s population by the end of September. The UK has opposed a patent waiver to allow more companies abroad to manufacture the doses themselves. A government spokesperson said: “We have committed to donate 100m doses by June 2022 with the first deliveries starting last week. On top of this, UK funding is helping to provide more than a billion vaccines to low- and middle-income countries through Covax.” Further Covid developments at our live blog.

Ignore grade critics, pupils told – The tens of thousands of pupils getting A-level and GCSE results this week should ignore complaints about grade inflation and be proud of their hard work, a headteacher says. “I’m certain that our grades and results have as much value this year as any year,” said Rachel Kitley from Cowes Enterprise College on the Isle of Wight. “Students have earned their grades through very, very hard work … [in conditions] far more difficult than most years. Our teachers have also had to work so hard, with great expertise and trust.”

There has been a spike in calls to Childline, with one 17-year-old girl telling counsellors she felt “lost … I feel bad saying that I want them to mark my coursework less strictly or something along those lines but I wish that they’d consider how unwell I’ve been mentally and how that has affected my performance”. An 18-year-old boy told Childline: “I used to get good grades but have been hindered this past year by Covid because I have found it hard to work and revise.” Wendy Robinson from Childline said the year had been “incredibly tough for young people … it is vital that they are supported and listened to”.

Piped in – The government has launched a GBP4m fund to back projects trialling running fibre optic broadband cables through water pipes to help connect hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads. The money will also be used to test out monitors in pipes that can help water companies identify and repair leaks more quickly. Infrastructure works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks, the government said. The project is designed to help cut those costs, and is part of a plan to improve broadband and mobile signals in rural areas.

‘A really unfortunate message’ – The Taliban have claimed a huge symbolic victory after their fighters seized the large city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, one of five provincial capitals taken in three days. A spokesman told Al Jazeera that there was no agreement on a ceasefire with the Afghan government. Previously, the insurgents entered Kunduz in 2015 and again in 2016 but were unable to hold it either time. The Taliban have seized control of much of rural Afghanistan since international forces began the last stage of their withdrawal in early May. The former senior UK military commander Gen Sir Richard Barrons has warned that attacks in Europe could be the outcome of the pullout from Afghanistan “We’ve not only, I think, sold the future of Afghanistan into a very difficult place, we’ve also sent a really unfortunate message to the west’s allies in the Gulf and Africa and Asia,” he told BBC Radio 4.

Pass the rice baby – Parents in Japan are sending bags of rice that weigh the same, and have the same face, as their newborn babies to relatives who are unable to visit them due to the pandemic. The bags come in different designs, with some shaped like a baby wrapped in a blanket so relatives can feel as though they are hugging the new arrival.

The inventor of the idea, Naruo Ono, owner of Kome no Zoto Yoshimiya rice shop, has also branched out into weddings. “The bride and groom give them to the respective parents with their pictures on them from when they were babies as a way of showing appreciation for giving birth to them,” Ono said.

Today in Focus podcast: The mystery around miscarriage

After journalist Jennie Agg suffered four miscarriages, she set out to better understand what is known about why women lose pregnancies and why conversations on the subject are still so difficult.

Lunchtime read: ‘They wanted a Russian Alan Sugar …’

They are TV’s unsung heroes, adored yet unrecognised. But do voice artists and mask-wearers ever crave fame? From the man behind the meerkats to Star Trek’s prosthetic-laden Captain Saru, we find out.

Sport

Tokyo has bid farewell to the Olympic Games with grace and a sense of relief after Japan spent $17bn on a party no one could attend, yet a shared message of overcoming hardship resonated worldwide. For Team GB, a trailblazing performance has been hailed as “the greatest achievement in British Olympic history” after the young team matched the tally of medals from London 2012 on the final day.

Warren Gatland has been told by the British & Irish Lions hierarchy that the job of head coach for the 2025 tour of Australia is his if he wants it, despite the series defeat by South Africa. The England cricket captain, Joe Root, felt his bowlers could have won the drawn first Test against India if the weather had relented while his opposite number, Virat Kohli, was also upbeat. Nuno Espirito Santo has confirmed Harry Kane has reported for pre-season at Tottenham, although it is expected he will not be able to train with his teammates until Thursday. And Lionel Messi broke down in tears in confirming his departure from Barcelona, with the forward expected to sign for Paris Saint-Germain this week.

Business

Asian shares have wobbled amid sharp losses in gold and oil prices. Holidays in Tokyo and Singapore have made for thin trading conditions, leaving MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan down 0.5%. The Nikkei was shut but futures were trading 100 points below Friday’s close. China’s factory gate inflation in July rose at a faster clip from the previous month and exceeded market expectations – its economy is on track to expand more than 8% this year but analysts say pent-up coronavirus demand has peaked and forecast growth to moderate over the next year. A lower open for the FTSE is in prospect, while the pound is worth $1.386 and EUR1.179 at time of writing.

The papers

The Guardian leads with “‘Almost out of time’: stark warning from scientists on climate disaster” with picture coverage for “Team GB’s Olympics hailed as ‘miracle of Tokyo‘”. And more of the latter elsewhere, of course: “Honour heroes who lifted nation”, the Express exhorts. “The greatest” – the Metro is talking specifically about GB cyclist Jason Kenny, he of the seven golds, but surely it goes for the whole team too. “Gleam GB” – that’s the Sun.

The Mail celebrates “Britain’s golden glory” but it doesn’t take out the whole front – the news lead is “Ministers: cut pay of civil servants who work at home”, which the Times has as “Get back to the office, ministers order staff”. The Telegraph says the Sutton Trust founder, Sir Peter Lampl, is worried about “Too many teenagers going to university” and the government is pushing for “even the brightest students to take up degree apprenticeship” so they can get paid while learning, rather than graduate jobless and with a mountain of student debt.

“What a waste of Monet” – the Mirror reports on GBP100,000 worth of paintings being hung at No 10. “Private health firms to profit from massive NHS backlog” says the i. The lead story in the Financial Times is “Philip Morris bid for Vectura tops GBP1bn as fight for UK assets heats up”. The tobacco company wants to buy the inhaler maker, and also two buyout groups are jousting over the supermarket chain Wm Morrison, as “a fierce takeover battle for UK businesses intensifies”.

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