Good morning. What a difference a new job can make. In 2022, Miatta Fahnbulleh, now the secretary of state for energy security and net zero, posted a message that was practically a climate activist's dream: "To have a shot at staying within 1.5C global warming, we can't have any new oil or gasfields … It's irresponsible and shortsighted to be funding new #fossilfuels when we need to be getting to #NetZero."

Fast forward to today, and Fahnbulleh, who wasn't even an MP back then, finds herself in the cabinet, staring down one of the most awkward questions of the new government's tenure: to drill or not to drill, baby? The spotlight is on two contentious North Sea sites. Yesterday, a public consultation on Jackdaw closed; next Monday, Rosebank gets its turn. Andy Burnham, meanwhile, has been as silent on climate as a mime at a funeral, even as we swelter through our fifth summer heatwave. What he does next will be a defining signal of intent - or a very loud silence.

In other news that may or may not be related to our collective inability to stop burning things: Colombia is mourning over 100 dead after a powerful earthquake hit western Colombia, wrecking buildings in Cali and Pereira. The UK is officially parched, with almost three-quarters of England now in drought and four more regions declared, while Europe braces for its fifth climate crisis-driven heatwave. Police are poking into whether Joshua Kerry, charged with murdering former politician Ann Widdecombe, also had a hand in an attempted burglary at Nigel Farage's old London home. Over in China, Typhoon Dolphin sent over a million people scrambling to safety as it made landfall, threatening floods and landslides. And in Russia, the supreme court has helpfully stripped voters of their last anti-war option, banning voting against the war in September's elections - because democracy is just so much tidier that way.