Environment | The Guardian

Climate negotiator Andre Aranha Correa do Lago given top job, bypassing Brazilian environment minister Marina SilvaBrazil has announced the top team for the next UN climate summit, which will be hosted in Belem this November, bypassing the country's environment minister, Marina Silva, in favour of a veteran diplomat for the crucial role of president of the talks.The experienced climate negotiator and secretary for climate, energy and environment, Andre Aranha Correa do Lago, will preside over the Cop30 summit, which is expected to draw scores of world leaders to Brazil - though not Donald Trump, who soon after his inauguration on Monday ordered the US's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Continue reading...

Pollution aside, the problem with expanding Heathrow lies in the disruption and delay inevitable in such a complex projectGet ready for another season of that interminable saga, Heathrow's third runway. There was a lull during the Covid pandemic when the airport's owners, despite winning permission from the supreme court in 2020 to submit a planning application, cooled their jets while they waited for passenger numbers to recover. Now the whole thing is back, courtesy of Rachel Reeves. The chancellor is reported to be preparing to use a speech next week to declare support for a third runway at Heathrow alongside wider airport expansion in the south-east.The best form of airport expansion is none at all, environmentalists (some of them in the cabinet) will argue, but it looks as if Reeves has dismissed those objections in the name of economic growth. A 1.1bn investment in Stansted, to enable it to grow its annual capacity from 29 million passengers to 43 million, was welcomed by the government last year. Continue reading...

Cost of fixing forever chemical' pollution should be borne by manufacturers and polluters, not governments and consumers, expert tells Senate inquiry

Critical CO stores held in permafrost are being released as the landscape changes with global heating, report showsA third of the Arctic's tundra, forests and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north.For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet's carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO into the atmosphere with rising temperatures, a new study published in Nature Climate Change concluded. Continue reading...

Artisanal shellfish farmers face ruinous losses but money meant to help is going to the powerful fishing industry, say criticsEarly on a warm September morning in southern Italy, Giovanni Nicandro sets out from the port of Taranto in his small boat. Summoning his courage, the mussel farmer inspects his year's work - only to find them all dead, a sight that almost brings him to tears.We have many problems," he says. The problems start as soon as we open our eyes in the morning." The loss is total - not only for Nicandro but also for Taranto's 400 other mussel farmers, after a combination of pollution and rising sea temperatures devastated their harvest. Continue reading...

Move is part of 300m investment that includes deepwater quay and building of hundreds of homes near city centreBelfast harbour is to invest 90m to upgrade its port to serve a wave of wind energy projects and cruise ships as part of a 300m investment plan.A new deepwater quay capable of supporting wind projects will be the largest part of an investment plan that also includes the construction of hundreds of homes at a site near the city centre. Continue reading...

President tells crowd that US will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity'

President declares energy emergency, reiterates Paris withdrawal plan and overturns emissions standardsDonald Trump declared a national energy emergency on the first day of his new presidency, as part of a barrage of pro-fossil fuel actions and efforts to unleash" already booming US energy production that included also rolling back restrictions in drilling in Alaska and undoing a pause on gas exports.The emergency declaration, which made good on a campaign-trail promise but could be open to legal challenge, would allow his administration to fast-track permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure.Trump sworn in as 47th president - follow live inauguration updatesFactchecking Trump's speechA who's who of far-right leaders in WashingtonMigrant groups at US-Mexico border await mass deportationsDoge' violates federal transparency rules, lawsuit claims Continue reading...

On first day back as president, Trump signs letter giving notice to UN of US exit from treaty seeking to curb climate crisis effects

Banks, asset managers and industry groups move to accommodate US president's anti-net zero stanceThe second Trump administration is expected to strike a blow to efforts to align the global financial sector with the path to net zero, with banks, asset managers and industry groups already moving to accommodate the incoming president's avowed policy of drill, baby, drill".As authorities declared 2024 the hottest on record, atmospheric carbon dioxide leapt by a record amount and fires ravaged Los Angeles, a key private sector climate alliance, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) abandoned a requirement that members be aligned to the Paris agreement. Continue reading...

Australian Conservation Foundation's analysis finds amount of habitat approved to be razed double previous year's as it calls for stronger protections

These ibises have a special skill called remote touch', which they use to find their worm, grub and snail prey through vibrationsHadedas are iridescent grey-brown ibises - jack russell-sized birds with long, curved bills and very small heads - found throughout sub-Saharan Africa.They have a special skill called remote touch", which they use to find their worm, grub and snail prey. At the tip of their bills is an organ that, when they stick it into the soil, can sense the vibrations of their food nearby. Continue reading...

Altadena's Village Playgarden education center served diverse families with outdoor classrooms, small farm and animals - till it was destroyed by flamesIn Altadena, it had become the hot ticket among the preschool set.But when Geoff and Kikanza Ramsey-Ray first bought the two-acre property at the edge of town in 2008, it was a shambles. The home was a rental for over 30 years and the grounds were woefully neglected. Yet the couple saw promise. Nestled against Angeles Crest national forest, with a mountain view and on a road with few other homes, the place felt protected and perfect for their vision: an early education center called Village Playgarden. Continue reading...

Pod Point reports weak demand for new cars as government says no firms will pay fines over ZEV mandate

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String jellyfish species that has killed millions of salmon in Norwegian sea farms reported in ScotlandA jellyfish species that has been wreaking havoc on Norway's salmon industry has made its way to Scotland, causing significant damage and prompting calls for urgent action.The string jellyfish has killed millions of salmon in Norwegian sea farms with officials urging an extermination of affected stocks. Continue reading...

Federal government aims to encourage power-intensive producers to switch to renewables by 2036

Exclusive: Restoration fund in England could be siphoned off' to be used for general government spending, not repairing riversRachel Reeves's Treasury is looking to keep millions of pounds levied on polluting water companies in fines that were meant to be earmarked for sewage cleanup, the Guardian has learned.The 11m water restoration fund was announced before the election last year, with projects bidding for the cash to improve waterways and repair damage done by sewage pollution in areas where fines have been imposed. Continue reading...

Volunteers who leave water in the desert describe rising fears of vigilantes and climate perilIt was a blustery day in the Sonoran desert as a group of humanitarian aid volunteers hiked through a vast dusty canyon to leave gallons of bottled water and canned beans in locations where exhausted migrants could find them.Empty plastic bottles, rusty cans and footprints heading north were among the signs of human activity strewn between the towering saguaro and senita cacti, in an isolated section of the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument - about 20 miles (32km) north of the US-Mexico border. Continue reading...

Shifting responsibility to consumers minimises the role of energy industry and policymakers, University of Sydney research suggests

Sifting for bottles together never gets old - it's the idea that something so fragile could have survived for so long in one piece and in one placeMy family and I have a weird hobby. We like to dig for old bottles. It's something we stumbled upon, quite literally, one soggy weekend.On a visit to the family farm, we were exploring a shady gully below the house, where an occasional creek meandered down the hill. One of the kids tripped on a jutting ridge in the mud. Dug up and sluiced out, the object revealed itself to be a round, honey-hued medicine bottle. Continue reading...

Angelenos returning to homes in burned areas could be exposed to toxic materials and mudslidesThe wildfires raging across the Los Angeles landscape have destroyed many thousands of homes and buildings and damaged hundreds more.And each property, experts warn, could pose a risk to Angelenos even long after the flames are extinguished. Continue reading...

United Utilities has dropped legal fight to block access to data on the discharge of treated sewage in Lake DistrictThe water company United Utilities has conceded defeat in its legal battle to block public access to data on treated sewage it is discharging into Windermere in the Lake District.Company officials initially claimed that data from phosphorus monitors at a main sewage treatment works at the lake was not environmental information. The company also wanted to block access to data from Cunsey Beck, a site of special scientific interest, which flows into Windermere. Continue reading...

Mexican officials ordered facility to shut down after report on very high levels of pollutants in surrounding neighborhood

Environmentalists are braced for new construction on the president's signature border wall - and the damage that would wreakDuring Donald Trump's first presidential term, he began an ambitious and costly border militarization program, including the construction of over 450 miles of wall that severed wildlife corridors and fragmented ecosystems in some of the country's most remote and biodiverse regions. With his second inauguration on Monday, environmentalists are bracing for any new phase of construction that could exacerbate the ecological toll of the border wall.It's an absolute travesty and a disaster for border wildlife," said Margaret Wilder, a human-environment geographer and political ecologist at the University of Arizona, regarding the environmental impact of the existing border wall and the prospect of renewed construction. She said the wall harmed efforts after many decades of binational cooperation between the US and Mexico to protect this fragile and biodiverse region. I don't think Americans realize what is at stake." Continue reading...

Oil and gas firms have given more than $75m to Trump's campaign and stand to benefit from his drill, baby drill' planAs Joe Biden warns in his farewell address as president that an oligarchy is taking shape in America", a new report reveals that US fossil fuel billionaires' wealth increased by 15% over the past nine months. Some of those wealthy figures will be at parties in DC celebrating Trump's inauguration on Monday and expecting further rewards for his drill, baby, drill" energy agenda.The report from the research group Climate Accountability Research Project (Carp) comes just days ahead of climate denier Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration, which oil and gas representatives and Trump donors plan to celebrate at a swanky industry party in Washington DC. Continue reading...

A combustible combination of factors laid the groundwork for disaster. Will LA learn the lessons from the fires as it moves forward?Dr Edith de Guzman watched the flames of the Palisades fire rolling through the Santa Monica mountains out of the windows of her University of California, Los Angeles, classroom last week.First, on Tuesday, flames surged toward the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the affluent community overlooking the ocean from the canyons in west LA. Then overnight, they tore through parts of Altadena, a diverse town in the city's east that had served as a refuge for Black Angelenos. Continue reading...

More sightings may be a positive sign for growing population but also indicative of effect of climate changeThe slap of an enormous tail upon grey waters as a humpback whale leaps from the sea is becoming an increasingly possible - although still rare - natural thrill around Britain.The 30-tonne, 15 metre-long migratory giants are being spotted in growing numbers and locations this winter from Kent to the Isles of Scilly. Continue reading...

Blaze erupts in Monterey county at one of world's largest battery storage plants, causing highway and school closuresA fire at one of the world's largest battery-storage plants in northern California flared up again on Friday afternoon, sending up plumes of toxic smoke after authorities had said the blaze was mostly over.The fire in Moss Landing in Monterey county started on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of up to 1,500 people and the closure of a major highway. Fire crews were not engaging with the fire but rather waiting for it to burn out on its own, a local fire official said. Continue reading...

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Some wildlife species have accumulated many times more than safe amount of PFAS in their tissue and organs

Adam McKay says the Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio-starring satire resonates with a widespread feeling of being deceived by government and mediaAdam McKay, writer-director of climate-crisis satire Don't Look Up, says that the film's popularity with viewers shows the popular will to tackle climate change, despite the critical brickbats the film attracted and political inertia around the issue.McKay was speaking to the NME during the wildfire emergency that is currently affecting Los Angeles, which has included many high-profile victims from the Hollywood community. Saying that while Netflix, the film's distributors, would not release definitive audience figures, he estimated that somewhere between 400 million and half a billion" people saw it, and that viewers all really connected with the idea of being gaslit". Continue reading...

Big oil executive plans to celebrate Trump's inauguration as California burns - though experts say climatic conditions are only getting more extremeDonald Trump's response to the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles has provided a stark prologue to how his US presidency will probably handle the growing threat of such disasters - through acrimony, brutal dealmaking and dismissal of a climate crisis that is spurring a mounting toll of fires, floods and other calamities.As of Thursday, four fires, whipped up by wind speeds more typically found in hurricanes, have torched 63 sq miles (163 sq km) of Los Angeles, a burned area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, destroying more than 12,000 homes and businesses and killing at least 25 people. The Palisades and Eaton fires, the largest of the conflagrations that have turned entire neighborhoods to ash, are still to be fully contained. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Cheonggyecheon stream in the South Korean capital has become an attraction - and helps with flood management, fighting air pollution and cooling the cityOn a crisp December morning, office workers and tourists stroll along a tree-lined stream in central Seoul, pausing on stepping stones that cross its flowing waters. It's difficult to imagine that just over 20 years ago, this was a vast elevated highway carrying 168,000 cars daily through the heart of South Korea's capital.Cheonggyecheon, a stream that runs for about 3.5 miles (nearly 6km) through Seoul, was one of the earliest experiments in an increasing trend in cities globally: turning spaces where there was once car or rail infrastructure into spaces for pedestrians and cyclists. It's a powerful example of the way that these spaces can become loved and popular, along with projects such as the High Line in New York, where an old railway track has been turned into a raised park, or the city moat in Utrecht, where a multi-lane road (nicknamed the motorway from nothing to nowhere") was converted back into a canal, in part of a huge continuing push to allow pedestrians and cyclists to dominate the city's centre. Continue reading...

Report criticises slow progress' on industry regulation, amid record fish mortality and concerns over welfare and environmental pollutionThe Scottish government has been criticised for its slow progress" on regulating the salmon farming industry by a parliamentary inquiry that took evidence for five months before reaching its conclusion.The report reveals that MSPs seriously considered" calling for a moratorium on new farms and expansion of existing sites due to concerns over persistently high salmon mortality rates but did not do so due to uncertainties over the impact on jobs and communities. Continue reading...

Data for 2024 shows humanity is moving yet deeper into a dangerous world of supercharged extreme weatherWildfires that blazed around the world in 2024 helped to drive a record annual leap in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, surprising scientists. The data shows humanity is moving yet deeper into a dangerous world of supercharged extreme weather.The CO level at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii jumped by 3.6 parts per million (ppm) to 427ppm, far above the 280ppm level before the large-scale burning of fossil fuels sparked the climate crisis. The Mauna Loa observations, known as the Keeling curve, began in 1958 and are the longest running direct measurements of CO. Continue reading...

Our society emphasises the value of conquering and overcoming your fears - but I can live with the idea of not climbing every mountainEarlier this year, I finally climbed Mount Anne. This has taken an unlikely amount of time - I've been climbing Tasmanian mountains for years, but had never been up one of the island's signature summits.A peak bagging" hobby is great fun, and takes you out to all sorts of interesting places. Some Tasmanians set themselves to climb the Abels, a list of 158 mountains that are at least 1100m high, but the list compiled by the Hobart Walking Club, the one I follow, is far more ridiculous - a total of 481 summits to find your way up. A list that huge seems bigger than most of them. Continue reading...

With the outlook for risk of fire, flood and other disasters increasing, this is not a problem that will go awayAs we watch the horror of the Los Angeles fires, Australians are painfully reminded of our own vulnerability to climate change, which continues to exacerbate the impact and frequency of these unnatural disasters.The images of loss and destruction in LA are particularly painful to those who have experienced such losses first-hand in Australia.Nicki Hutley is an independent economist and councillor with the Climate Council Continue reading...

The fires have been devastating for humans and taken a toll on nature, but many of California's ecosystems will be able to regenerateBeth Pratt has spent her career protecting Los Angeles' mountain lions, which roam an area currently engulfed by wildfires. These apex predators, also known as cougars or pumas, share a scrubby landscape with lavish private homes and a dense network of roads. When major fires take out huge areas of open space, their options are limited.This is the LA area - these mountain lions can't move into the Kardashians' back yard," says Pratt, California executive director for the National Wildlife Federation. My heart is very heavy right now," she says. Continue reading...

After insurers like State Farm dropped policies, to switch to the state's Fair plan was prohibitively pricey for manyWhen James Borow realized last Tuesday that his Palisades house was on fire, he was 300 miles away in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. The power was out at his house but a friend suggested he remotely turn on his Tesla and see if the cameras showed anything.From the car camera, he watched in a panic as his house burned. As he drove home from Vegas to LA, he called his parents and told them: You'll see it on the news tomorrow, but the house is totally gone. I just watched it." Continue reading...

British director of Human Rights Watch attacks dangerous hypocrisy' of governmentBritain's crackdown on climate protest is setting a dangerous precedent" around the world and undermining democratic rights, the UK director of Human Rights Watch has said.Yasmine Ahmed accused the Labour government of hypocrisy over its claims to be committed to human rights and international law. Continue reading...

Eaton fire tore through Altadena, burning buildings and killing many. Its residents are only now taking in the scale of devastationA week after wildfires tore through the community of Altadena, the smell of destruction still hangs in the air. The acrid smoke seeped into the walls of homes that survived the Eaton fire, which burned 7,000 buildings and killed at least 15 people.On Woodbury Road, where unblemished homes stand in between blackened lots of charred rubble, the devastation overwhelms the senses. The houses that haven't completely collapsed offer glimpses of life before disaster arrived - pitchers and mugs in a cabinet, all a deep black, a bed still standing, a scorched bicycle and children's toys. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Water industry calls for PFAS ban after analysis of sampling data shows contamination across country

With few exceptions, the news has shied away from showing how the unfolding climate crisis plays a large role in the disasterLast week, as the Sunset fire was bearing down on her Los Angeles home, Allison Agsten approached a group of television news crews gathering in her neighborhood. Did any of them plan to mention the role of the climate crisis in their reporting?The question was professional as well as personal for Agsten, who runs a climate journalism center at the University of Southern California and has trained reporters on how to connect the climate crisis to what's happening in the world. She has lived in her home along Runyon Canyon, near Hollywood, for a decade. Continue reading...

Levels of PFAS chemicals found in sludge destined for British land would not be considered safe for allotments

Office for Environmental Protection calls for urgent action after finding government is falling short on most targetsThe window to stop the decline of England's nature is swiftly closing, the environmental watchdog has said, as its latest report finds that the government is falling short on most of its targets to improve the environment.Some of Labour's actions, however, including setting up a water commission and writing a new environmental improvement plan, were praised by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) in its annual review of how the government was meeting the legally binding environment targets. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Report by risk experts says previous assessments ignored severe effects of climate crisisGlobal economic growth could plummet by 50% between 2070 and 2090 from the catastrophic shocks of climate change unless immediate action by political leaders is taken to decarbonise and restore nature, according to a new report.The stark warning from risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) hugely increases the estimate of risk to global economic wellbeing from climate change impacts such as fires, flooding, droughts, temperature rises and nature breakdown. In a report with scientists at the University of Exeter, published on Thursday, the IFoA, which uses maths and statistics to analyse financial risk for businesses and governments, called for accelerated action by political leaders to tackle the climate crisis. Continue reading...

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Democrats criticize Chris Wright's comments during US Senate confirmation hearing for energy secretary nomineeDonald Trump's nominee for energy secretary, Chris Wright, is facing criticism for disputing the ties between climate change and more frequent or severe wildfires, the Washington Post reports, a stance that is contrary to scientific consensus.During Wright's US Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Democrats, including the California senator Alex Padilla, challenged Wright over past comments, pointing to a LinkedIn post calling wildfire concerns hype" and dismissing their connection to climate policies. Continue reading...