Hunger is part of American life. Even as a professional adult, it's never too far from Dr Angie Morrill's thoughtsI asked my older sister why we sang the Patty Cake song so often as children: Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can! She replied simply: Because we were hungry."Her answer stayed with me, and I thought about some happy memories: mom making Toll House cookies while The Wizard of Oz played on television. Delivering baked goods to elders and friends in our Native urban community at Christmas; we are enrolled citizens in the Klamath Tribes, whose traditional homelands are in southern Oregon and northern California. Sharing food is a cultural value for Native people. Mom taught us to always offer food and drinks to our guests. It's also important to have enough food to share. Continue reading...

Government panel's final report calls for radical reset' of planning and environmental rules to get reactors built faster and cheaper

Blazes that smoulder in the permafrost, only to reignite, are extending fire season though winter, leaving vegetation struggling to recoverIn May 2023, a lightning strike hit the forest in Donnie Creek, British Columbia, and the trees started to burn. It was early in the year for a wildfire, but a dry autumn and warm spring had turned the forest into a tinderbox, and the flames spread rapidly. By mid-June, the fire had become one of largest in the province's history, burning through an area of boreal forest nearly twice the size of central London. That year, more of Canada burned than ever before.The return of cold and snow at the close of the year typically signal the end of the wildfire season. But this time, the fire did not stop. Instead, it smouldered in the soil underground, insulated from the freezing conditions by the snowpack. The next spring, it reemerged as a zombie fire" that continued to burn until August 2024. By then, more than 600,000 hectares (1.5m acres) had been destroyed. Continue reading...

The fingerprints of Russia and Saudi Arabia are all over the decision text in Brazil. But a group of nations led by Colombia and the Netherlands offer hope

The Philippines is one of the countries most at risk of the climate emergency due to its low-lying island geography. With sea temperatures rising, the country deals with increasingly frequent and intense typhoons, rising sea-levels that threaten coastal communities, and changing rainfall patterns that disrupt agriculture. The country is one of the smallest contributors to climate change but one of the places most affected by its impacts. Gideon Mendel's visceral portraits from his project Drowning World show people in Bulacan province dealing with the climate emergency in their daily lives Continue reading...

Opposition claims key diplomatic role at next year's conference in Turkey would make Bowen a part-time minister' while Australians face inflated energy prices

Getting to net zero CO emissions globally means we can halt global warming. This requires a rapid phase-out. It's physicsWith another set of global climate talks behind us, the Australian government faces some tricky tasks before it takes over negotiations at the next round of talks next year in Turkey.

For all its flaws, the Brazil conference underlined the wish by a global majority for clean energy and climate action - and the UK will keep leading the way

Reaching agreement in divisive political landscape shows climate cooperation is alive and kicking', says UN climate chiefThe world is not winning the fight against the climate crisis but it is still in that fight, the UN climate chief has said in Belem, Brazil, after a bitterly contested Cop30 reached a deal.Countries at Cop30 failed to bring the curtain down on the fossil fuel age amid opposition from some countries led by Saudi Arabia, and they underdelivered on a flagship hope - at a conference held in the Amazon - to chart an end to deforestation. Continue reading...

The government has offered to make changes to the bill to both the Greens and the Liberals hoping to reach a deal on legislation that can pass the Senate

Alison Gaffney believes her son's rare leukaemia was caused by dumped toxic waste from the town's steelworksAlison Gaffney and Andy Hinde received the devastating news that their 17-month-old son, Fraser, had a rare type of leukaemia in 2018.Two years of gruelling treatment followed, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy, before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, then aged three, made a miraculous recovery" from the surgery, before doctors declared the cancer in remission. Continue reading...

Cross-party coalition behind proposals hope eco-friendly scheme for million people could begin before end of decadeIn the next few years, spades could be in the ground for a city made of wood, in the middle of the largest new nature reserve created in England in decades, with four-bedroom homes on sale for 350,000.It sounds too good to be true, but a cross-party coalition of campaigners is trying to make a forest city" to house a million people a reality, with construction commencing by the end of this parliament. It would be the first such project in England since the purpose-built new town of Milton Keynes in the 1960s. Continue reading...

Australia may not be hosting Cop31, but the unprecedented Turkey partnership is a real chance to secure global influence and turbocharge a new green zeitgeist

After a series of all-night meetings and fears the summit could collapse, an agreement has been gavelled through at Cop30We have some texts, but we do not have the big one yet (the global mutirao decision).So far, we have the final versions on the mitigation work programme, the global stocktake, gender, loss and damage, and the global environment facility. Continue reading...

Wealthy countries should triple funds for countries to tackle climate impacts, but deforestation and critical minerals blocked from final dealThe world edged a small step closer to the end of the fossil fuel era on Saturday, but not by nearly enough to stave off the ravages of climate breakdown.Countries meeting in Brazil for two weeks could manage only a voluntary agreement to begin discussions on a roadmap to an eventual phase-out of fossil fuels, and they achieved this incremental progress only in the teeth of implacable opposition from oil-producing countries. Continue reading...

Trend is adding to waste crisis' owing to individual packaging and potential for unwanted items, campaigners sayThe trend for Advent calendars aimed at adults is superfluous consumerism" that adds to excessive and wasteful consumption, according to environmental groups.While once children excitedly opened a door each day to see what festive picture lay behind it, adults can now count down the days to Christmas with calendars containing everything from luxury beauty products to instant mashed potato. Continue reading...

National Trust begins planting the 49 trees of hope' so the illegally felled tree can live on in a positive waySaplings from the felled Sycamore Gap tree are to be planted across the UK, including at a pit disaster site, a town still healing from the Troubles and a place which became an international symbol of peace, protest and feminism.The National Trust said planting of 49 saplings, known as trees of hope", would begin on Saturday. It is hoped that the sycamore will live on in a positive, inspirational way. Continue reading...

Summit president Andre Correa do Lago issued plea to preserve Paris agreement with countries unable to reach compromise on scheduled final dayAn informal stocktake plenary is now underway [see live feed at the top of the blog]. Here the presidency will update parties on the state of the negotiations.My colleague Damian Carrington will be keeping across the main developments. Continue reading...

UK energy secretary says UN climate talks must find way to keep proposals alive despite significant resistanceSupporters of a global phaseout of fossil fuels must find creative" ways to keep the proposal alive, including making it voluntary rather than binding, the UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has said in the closing stages of the UN climate talks.As the Cop30 summit in Brazil carried on past the Friday night deadline, the prospect of countries agreeing on the need for a roadmap to a global transition away from fossil fuels" looked increasingly dim. A first draft of the potential outcome text from the summit had contained the formulation, but in the updated draft text produced on Friday by the Brazilian presidency it had been excised. Continue reading...

President of talks urges ministers and high-ranking officials to find common ground as conference nears its end

Exclusive: Concession follows fierce criticism of the workaround but may not be enough to convince minor party

Australian Marine Conservation Society's GoodFish guide aims to showcase the most environmentally friendly seafood sources

Here are some of the standout images from this year's Nature Conservancy Australia Oceania photo contest. Winners were chosen from over 3,500 entries from across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands Continue reading...

Nearly 13m people are hoarding millions of dollars' worth of the stylish 50 peso note, featuring Mexico's cutest critterFor most of her life, Gorda was just an axolotl who lived in a museum in Mexico City - that is, until she became the star of the country's favourite banknote.The note, which features a depiction of Gorda as the model for Mexico's iconic species of salamander, went into circulation in 2021, dazzling the judges of the International Bank Notes Society, who declared it the Note of the Year. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Summit leadership releases new text despite 29 nations threatening to block progress without commitmentA new draft text on the outcome of the Cop30 climate talks has been published that contains no mention of a phase-out of fossil fuels, despite countries supporting such action having threatened to block any agreement without it.The Guardian revealed on Thursday night that at least 29 nations supporting a phase-out of fossil fuels at the climate summit had sent a letter to the Brazilian Cop presidency threatening to block any agreement that did not include such a commitment, in a significant escalation of tensions at the crunch talks. The leaked letter demanded that the roadmap be included in the outcome of the talks, which are due to end on Friday but are likely to continue into the weekend. Continue reading...

Climate sceptics tell us that more people die of extreme cold than extreme heat. What's the truth?I began by trying to discover whether or not a widespread belief was true. In doing so, I tripped across something even bigger: an index of the world's indifference. I already knew that by burning fossil fuels, gorging on meat and dairy, and failing to make even simple changes, the rich world imposes a massive burden of disaster, displacement and death on people whose responsibility for the climate crisis is minimal. What I've now stumbled into is the vast black hole of our ignorance about these impacts.What I wanted to discover was whether it's true that nine times as many of the world's people die of cold than of heat. The figure is often used by people who want to delay climate action: if we do nothing, some maintain, fewer will die. Of course, they gloss over all the other impacts of climate breakdown: the storms, floods, droughts, fires, crop failures, disease and sea level rise. But is this claim, at least, correct?George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

This week's best wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

The enormous, serpentine fish, regarded in Japanese folklore as a herald of disaster, usually live deep below the surface and are only sighted when sick or dying

But Sunshine state Republicans might oppose drilling off state's famous beaches that keep tourism dollars coming inThe Trump administration on Thursday announced new oil and gas drilling off California's and Florida's coasts, setting the stage for a political showdown - including with Sunshine state Republicans who have largely opposed petroleum development in the Gulf of Mexico.This announcement comes as the US petroleum industry, despite contending with low crude prices, has been pushing for an entree to additional offshore drilling areas. The industry's move for increased access also marks an effort to increase jobs and US energy independence, according to the Associated Press. Continue reading...

Event thrown into confusion and 13 treated for smoke inhalation after conference centre evacuated

US speaker emerita criticizes Trump's anti-climate stance and his remarks to the UN general assemblyPresident Trump is the biggest con job in American history," said Nancy Pelosi, the US speaker emerita, to reporters on Thursday while criticizing his anti-climate agenda.Donald Trump told the UN general assembly in September that the climate crisis was the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world". But he was projecting", Pelosi said at a press conference. The meeting was convened by Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to comment on the US's official absence from the United Nations Cop30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, where 195 countries are represented. Continue reading...

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres earlier used speech at Belem summit to urge countries to find compromises in final hours of negotiationsInside the halls of Cop30 you see people from all around the world, and it can be easy to forget that there are many people who remain unrepresented.On Thursday morning, Magne Tony was standing with compatriots from French Guiana outside the entrance to the conference centre, trying to push pieces of paper into the hands of arriving delegates and observers headed: Our Amazon is dying".The main problem is that France are in 9,000 kilometres from Amazonia, from South America, and they're taking decisions. [But] they don't really know what is the problem really. They're taking the decisions from their own mind and the problem is that they're far from reality.That's why we decided to alert the people in the world about [our] problems: water coming up, getting enough to eat, more heat - in some parts of French Guiana, people don't have water.These crises, a consequence of Western capitalist madness, primarily affect the most vulnerable: women and communities dependent on forests and rivers. But they also concern all of humanity: French Guiana is part of the Amazon, a regulator of the global climate and essential to planetary balance.We remind you that French Guiana is the last colony in South America without self-determination. We will not be able to protect our environment or guarantee our food and energy self-sufficiency, essential for our collective survival, as long as decisions are made in Paris without consulting the affected communities or taking into account local specificities. Continue reading...

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he is ready to fight for transition roadmap despite opposition from some states

Scourge of goldfish has become growing problem as fish are released by pet owners into increasingly warm watersCity officials in Canada's capital city, Ottawa, plan to cull thousands of feral goldfish from a stormwater pond, a decision that reflects the pervasive spread of the species throughout the region.Earlier in the year, city staff removed 5,000 fish from the city's Celebration Park. But as many as 1,000 more are believed to still be living in the water. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guidance distributed to MPs seeks to pre-empt questions about plan's compatibility with Paris agreement, indicating opposition is aware of potential breach

It's a climate-vulnerable nation, while also being the world's sixth-largest greenhouse-gas emitter. Global investment in climate action is vital Continue reading...

The reason for the disappearance of Lac Rouge in Quebec, Canada, is not confirmed, but the trigger may have been a combination of heavy rainfall and wildfires having rendered the surrounding soil more water-repellent.Tree root systems allow for greater water retention, meaning soil is able to absorb more water as snow melts in spring. Nicolas Mainville, the conservation and climate director at Snap Quebec, said: 'Flying over the area reveals how huge swathes of forest have been completely removed by salvage logging and post-fire scarification.'The forest is fragile. It is time to better protect the land' Continue reading...

Experts fear plan, one of many attempts Trump's made to dismantle wildlife protection, will speed up extinction crisisThe Trump administration presented a new plan to roll back regulations in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Wednesday, a move experts fear will accelerate the extinction crisis if adopted.The proposed changes would allow the federal government more power to weigh economic impact against habitat designations, remove safeguards against future events - including the impacts from the climate crisis - and rescind the blanket rule" that automatically grants threatened species the same protections as those designated as endangered. Continue reading...

Study finds rising seas could flood facilities handling waste, sewage, and oil and gas - and coastal states most at riskMore than 5,500 toxic sites nationwide could face coastal flooding by 2100 due to rising sea levels, according to new research.The study, published on Thursday in Nature Communications and led by scientists at the University of California, warns that if heat-trapping pollution continues unabated, rising seas will flood a wide range of hazardous facilities including those handling sewage, toxic waste, oil and gas, as well as other industrial pollutants. Continue reading...

Researchers in British Columbia catch sea wolves in the act after placing camera to solve mystery of damaged trapsThe clues read like something from mystery novel: crab traps, suspiciously hauled ashore by unseen hands, had been damaged by baffling teeth marks. The bait inside was missing.The question for researchers in the remote corner of British Columbia was: whodunnit? As with many crimes of opportunity in the modern era, the culprit was unmasked by a remote camera. Continue reading...

Sussan Ley's offer allows a clear path to pass laws to rewrite Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in final sitting week

While the outcome is a let down for those who want Australia to do better on climate, Chris Bowen looks set to play a pivotal role in the UN talks

Scientists discover thousands of sea creatures have made their homes amid the detritus of abandoned second world war munitions off the coast of GermanyIn the brackish waters off the German coast lies a wasteland of Nazi bombs, torpedo heads and mines. Thrown off barges at the end of the second world war and forgotten about, thousands of munitions have become matted together over the years. They form a rusting carpet on the shallow, muddy seafloor of the Bay of Lubeck in the western tip of the Baltic Sea.Over the decades, the Nazi arsenal was ignored and forgotten about. A growing number of tourists flocked to the sandy beaches and calm waters for jetskiing, kite surfing and amusement parks. Beneath the surface, the weapons decayed. Continue reading...

Fortnight-long event to be held in Antalya but Australian climate change minister Chris Bowen expected to lead the negotiations

Australia had been pushing to host climate conference next year with south Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disastersPapua New Guinea has voiced frustration after Australia ditched a bid to co-host next year's UN climate talks with its Pacific island neighbours.We are all not happy. And disappointed it's ended up like this," foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told Agence France-Presse after Australia ceded hosting rights to Turkey. Continue reading...

As president Lula tries to find common ground between negotiating countries, planetary scientists say emissions must be urgently cutMother Earth is watching over Cop30. I am taking care to watch over all the decisions taken here about me," she told the Guardian. The blessing card she presented said: Knowing the powerful impact my thoughts can have on others and the environment, I choose to create a positive mindset."This beautiful vision is in everyday life Nazare Oliveira, an indigenous woman from Belem, and a descendant of the Potyguar people. She is part of the international spiritual organisation Brahma Kumaris, led by women and which uses meditation to emphasise the concept of identity as souls rather than bodies and the idea that humanity and nature are one.This is my fifth COP. I've been around since COP26 in Glasgow and this has been the most militarised COP I've attended. We had really high expectations because I'm from Latin America, and this is also the Latin American COP - apart from the Amazonian and the Brazilian Cop.So we had really high expectations of also being able to demonstrate, protest and exercise our right to the civic space. But we have encountered heavy militarisation and a heavy crackdown on civil society protesting outside the venue.I think it's very disconcerting. Like it was definitely a very racist letter where the UN seems to want to inflict power over the autonomous territory of Brazilian authorities.I think this is a confrontation that is needed. What's happening in between civil society, the military and the UN, it's a reflection of the tension that exists within this space. So I hope for this COP that the United Nations authorities and the Brazilian authorities open their eyes and they realise that what they are doing, what they are inflicting with the militarisation of COP is completely opposite of what they have been preaching in the last three years.Brazil knew that they wanted to host this COP since three years ago, probably even earlier. So the way that they are responding to it does not show that they were ready to receive all this flow of international civil society. So my hope is that they can release, relax the heavy militarization that they're putting in the space and allow us to use the civic space to demonstrate. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Andre Correa do Lago says rise of clean energy must be acknowledged and rich countries need to do more

We want to hear about how these shifts showed up in your everyday lives this yearThe climate crisis is reshaping our lives: extreme weather events are intensifying, extinctions are accelerating and the urgency for both adaptation and intervention only increase.But there are also the smaller, more personal impacts. Perhaps it's not being able to fish with your kids in the place where your childhood memories were made because the river has dried up. Maybe it's not being able to gather around a campfire in the summer, due to wildfire risks and restrictions. It can be the loss of a favorite tree, a personal sacrifice you've made for the greater good, or a change you've observed through the seasons. Continue reading...

Governments across the continent have attacked green rules with increasing ferocity - all while professing their commitment to existing climate targets Don't get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereTo little fanfare and few international headlines, Denmark just announced one of the world's most ambitious climate targets.The unusually wind-powered and cycle-friendly Nordic nation - whose ruling Social Democrats suffered a setback in elections on Tuesday - promised on Monday to cut planet-heating pollution by at least 82% by 2035 from 1990 levels. The goal inches past the UK's landmark 81% target for that year and races ahead of the EU's rather wide goal of 66.3% to 72.5%. Continue reading...

If it makes impact on Friday, it would be the earliest cyclone of the season to make landfall in Australia since 1973