Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot/Citroen face group action in which damages could exceed 6bnCar manufacturers decided they would rather cheat to prioritise customer convenience" and sell cars than comply with the law on deadly pollutants, the first day of the largest group action trial in English legal history has been told.More than a decade after the original dieselgate" scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that manufacturers deliberately installed software to rig emissions tests. Continue reading...

Environmental group accuses king's property management company of milking for profit' its monopoly ownership of seabedGreenpeace is threatening to sue King Charles's property management company, accusing it of exploiting its monopoly ownership of the seabed.The environmental lobby group alleges the crown estate has driven up costs for wind power developers and boosted its own profits, as well as the royal household's income, due to the aggressive" way it auctions seabed rights. Continue reading...

Research comparing Adirondack mountain lakes in New York suggests foot traffic is significant source of pollutionHiking shoes and outdoor gear are likely a significant source of microplastic pollution in the wilderness, new research that checked for the pernicious material in several Adirondack mountain lakes in upstate New York suggests.Researchers measured microplastic levels in two lakes that are the among highest sources of water for the Hudson River - one that sees heavy foot traffic from hikers, and another lake that is far away from a path and rarely touched by human activity. Continue reading...

Lord Stern says fossil-fuelled growth is futile as the damage it causes ends in economic self-destructionInvestment in climate action is the economic growth story of the 21st century, while growth fuelled by fossil fuels is futile because the damage it causes ends in self-destruction, the economist Nicholas Stern has said.The plummeting costs of clean technologies, from renewable energy to electric cars, plus the healthier and more productive societies they enable, meant investments could simultaneously tackle the climate crisis and faltering economic growth, and bring millions of people out of poverty, he said. Continue reading...

Scientists have examined the $16.5bn project's climate impact and found it could expose more than half a million people to unprecedented heat

Birdwatching: everyone's doing it (we think)! But how exactly do you start? Is it really the cure-all to gen Z and millennial woes? BirdLife's Sean Dooley and comedian Geraldine Hickey show Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley the ins and outs of birdwatching - just in time for the 2025 bird of the year

Farmers praised the move, but scientists and opposition parties criticised it as weak' and unambitious'Environmental campaigners have accused New Zealand's government of full-blown climate denial" after it slashed targets for reducing emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.New Zealand's right-leaning coalition government outlined plans on Sunday to reduce methane emissions by between 14 and 24% by 2050, compared to 2017 levels. Continue reading...

Europe and Brazil have a rare opportunity, unimpeded by the US, to make a success of Cop30 - and reshape the world orderThe climate crisis, Donald Trump told the UN last month, is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world". With these words the US president rejected the international scientific consensus and evidence that we can all check daily with a basic thermometer. He has also announced he is withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, signed in 2015 by 195 UN countries. The US joins an axis of deniers including Yemen, Iran and Libya, countries that signed the agreement but never ratified it.Paradoxically, Trump's reversal provides an opportunity for others to advance the climate agenda: to sketch out the blueprint of a possible new world order without the US, even if Washington was the architect of the old one.Francesco Grillo is a visiting fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, and director of the thinktank Vision Continue reading...

The volcanic island of Surtsey emerged in the 1960s, and scientists say studying its development offers hope for damaged ecosystems worldwideThe crew of the Isleifur II had just finished casting their nets off the coast of southern Iceland when they realised something was wrong. In the early morning gloom in November 1963, a dark mass filled the sky over the Atlantic Ocean. They rushed to the radio, thinking that another fishing vessel was burning at sea, but no boats in the area were in distress.Then, their trawler began to drift unexpectedly, unnerving the crew further. The cook scrambled to wake the captain, thinking they were being pulled into a whirlpool. Finally, through binoculars, they spotted columns of ash bursting from the water and realised what was going on: a volcano was erupting in the ocean below. Continue reading...

People urged to savour sights, sounds and smells of the season as poll shows a disconnect during darker monthsThere may be a bite in the wind and the nights are certainly drawing in but a conservation charity and a television wildlife champion have launched a campaign aimed at getting more people connecting with nature in the autumn and winter months.The National Trust is launching a Wild Senses" campaign on the back of the new BBC series Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles in which the wildlife expert and camera operator Hamza Yassin celebrates the UK's seasons and encourages viewers to notice, appreciate and reconnect to wildlife everywhere. Continue reading...

A 2% blend of low-carbon gas injected into gas grid to fuel Brigg power station in North Lincolnshire is a UK firstEnergy companies have injected green hydrogen into Britain's gas grid and used the low-carbon gas to generate electricity, in a landmark development for the UK's climate ambitions.For the first time in the UK, a 2% blend of green hydrogen was injected into the gas grid and blended with traditional gas to fuel the Brigg power station in North Lincolnshire which generated electricity for the power system. Continue reading...

Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C as fast as possible', warm water coral reefs will not remain at any meaningful scale', a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns

Rachel Reeves's drive to speed up development is beginning to treat wildlife and the environment as expendable. Voters want homes built, but not at any costIt began with gastropods. Last Tuesday, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told a conference of tech executives that she'd intervened to help a developer build about 20,000 homes in north Sussex that had been held up, she said, by some snails ... a protected species or something". She added that they are microscopic ... you cannot even see" them.No one could miss the direction the chancellor was headed in. The snail in question, the lesser whirlpool ramshorn, is one of Britain's rarest freshwater creatures, found in only a handful of locations and highly sensitive to sewage pollution. But Ms Reeves portrayed it as a bureaucratic nuisance. She then bragged that she'd fixed it - after a friendly developer gave her a call. It's a bad look for a Labour politician, let alone the chancellor, to boast that green rules can be bent for chums. Continue reading...

Grattan Institute report argues fall in costs will provide federal government room for more action on climate

Exclusive: National Highways Agency stripped of oversight with project handed to DfT amid Labour government drive for growthMinisters have stripped the government's road-building agency of responsibility for a 10bn tunnel under the River Thames amid a drive by Keir Starmer's cabinet to take tight control over important infrastructure projects for fear of cost overruns and delays.Oversight of the Lower Thames Crossing - the UK's largest planned infrastructure project - has been taken away from National Highways and handed to the Department for Transport (DfT). Continue reading...

In this year's Australian bird of the year poll, Guardian Australia's very own Matilda Boseley has made no secret about her favourite. Dressed as an Australian pelican, Matilda navigates the pigeons of Melbourne to find people to tell her what their favourite native birds are - and give us their best birdcall attempts

Number of endangered butterfly species also surging amid habitat destruction and global heating, finds studyThe number of wild bee species in Europe at risk of extinction has more than doubled over the past decade, while the number of endangered butterfly species has almost doubled.The jeopardy facing crucial pollinators was revealed by scientific studies for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species, which found that at least 172 bee species out of 1,928 were at risk of extinction in Europe. Continue reading...

The tally of Australian mammals extinct since 1788 is now 39 species - far more than for any other countryIt's official: the only Australian shrew is no more.The latest edition of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List, the world's most comprehensive global inventory on extinction risk, has declared the Christmas Island shrew is extinct.This little animal is extremely common all over the island, and at night its shrill shriek, like the cry of a bat, can be heard on all sides. Continue reading...

Esmeralda 7 in Nevada would have produced enough energy to power 2m homesThe Trump administration has killed a huge proposed solar power project in Nevada that would have been one of the largest in the world, indicating that the White House plans to attack not only wind power but all renewable energy.On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) changed the status of the Esmeralda 7 project to say its environmental review has been cancelled", the climate publication Heatmap first reported. Continue reading...

Video shows some of the juveniles exploring outside their den at Mallee Cliffs national park in south-western NSW

Exclusive: Old Faithful' was captured after Queensland authorities deemed him a problem crocodile', but Rinyirru Aboriginal Corporation says the government is mistaken

Trial of Nick Gratwick, 68, who schemed to rape children as young as six, exposes previous role among green protestersA man who schemed to rape children as young as six was revealed at his trial to have been a police informer who spied on environmental activists.Nick Gratwick, 68, was found guilty on Friday of 38 abhorrent" paedophile offences, including plans over the last two years to pay to rape or sexually assault children in the UK and abroad. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Trial that has produced 13 hatchlings could help other threatened species avoid extinctionThe slow-motion pitter-patter of tiny giant tortoise feet has been worryingly rare in recent years, but that looks set to change thanks to the first successful hatching of the species with artificial incubation.One week after the intervention, the 13 babies are building up their strength on a diet of banana slices and leafy greens in Seychelles, which is home to one of the last remaining populations of the tortoise. Continue reading...

Tariffs have caused a Chinese exit from the soybean market - and midwestern farmers are waiting on a solutionAt the Purfeerst farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest just wrapped up for the season. The silver grain bins are full of about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which grab about $10 a piece.This year, though, the fate of the soybeans, and the people whose livelihoods depend on selling them, is up in the air: America's soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the US and China, the biggest purchaser of soybean exports, used to feed China's pigs. Continue reading...

Biodiversity losses are growing, the IUCN reports as summit opens, but green turtle's recovery reminds us conservation works'More than half of all bird species are in decline, according to a new global assessment, with deforestation driving sharp falls in populations across the planet.On the eve of a key biodiversity summit in the UAE, scientists have issued a fresh warning about the health of bird populations, with 61% of assessed species now recording declines in their numbers. Continue reading...

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

Chris Bowen calls move disappointing' as energy expert says government has delivered a cul de sac not a roadmap'

Prince of Wales's decision welcomed as a means of drawing attention to the event and galvanising talksThe Prince of Wales will attend the crunch Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil next month, the Guardian has learned, but whether the prime minister will go is still to be decided.Prince William will present the Earthshot prize, a global environmental award and attend the meeting of representatives of more than 190 governments in Belem. Continue reading...

Orsted plans to shrink company after Trump administration causes share price to plunge to all-time lowOne of the world's biggest windfarm developers will cut its workforce by a quarter in the next two years after a series of setbacks for the industry.Danish wind giant Orsted plans to remove about 2,000 positions from its 8,000-strong workforce by the end of 2027 through a combination of redundancies, natural attrition and selling off parts of its business. Continue reading...

Official reports are likely to overlook heat's role in a death. As US temperatures rise, experts say the true toll needs to be countedAmong the autopsy reports that made my heart skip a beat was Hannah Rose Moody.One morning last May, the 31-year-old set out on a favourite desert hike near her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was already 91F (33C) when she set off. On Instagram, she told her 50,000 followers: Conquering this trail as a last hurrah before summer hits ... I have like 5 gallons of water with me don't worry ." Continue reading...

Report looks at White House nominees and appointees and agencies dictating energy, environment and climate policyDonald Trump has placed dozens of people with ties to the fossil fuel sector in his administration, including more than 40 who have directly worked for oil, gas or coal companies, according to a new analysis.The report from Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy and ethics non-profit that has been critical of the Trump administration, alongside the Revolving Door Project, a corporate watchdog, analyzed the backgrounds of nominees and appointees within the White House and eight agencies dictating energy, environmental and climate policy. That includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the interior and energy departments and others. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Government failure to close loophole allows 600,000 tonnes to be shipped abroad each yearA plastic recycling industry potentially worth 2bn and 5,000 jobs is dying in the UK because of government failure to close a loophole that allows 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste to be exported each year.The Guardian can reveal that in the past two years 21 plastic recycling and processing factories across the UK have shut down due to the scale of exports, the cheap price of virgin plastic and an influx of cheap plastic from Asia, according to data gathered by industry insiders. Continue reading...

Competition watchdog agrees to requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, South East, Southern and Wessex to increase charges

Study shows high-magnitude temblor in north-west could set off another in California, causing unrivaled disasterWarnings about the looming threat of the big one" - a catastrophic earthquake that could devastate cities - have stoked fears across the US west coast for decades. But according to a new study, a high-magnitude earthquake in the Pacific north-west could set off a secondary one on California's San Andreas fault, causing an unrivaled catastrophe.The bigger one" would have the potential to wreak havoc up and down the coast at once, researchers say. Continue reading...

Struggling fishers in Hastings say the industry is dying after a deal giving away access to its waters made a tough job impossibleA small flotilla of gaily coloured fishing boats line the shingle beach at Hastings, East Sussex. Behind them are the bulldozers that shunt them into the waves and beyond, in neat rows, are black wooden fishermen's huts and fish stalls, where on a good day teenage daughters, wives and retired skippers sell some of the day's catch.This is the Stade, a Saxon word for landing place" from where wooden boats have set off since before William the Conqueror arrived in 1066.Peter White outside his shed. He has been fishing for 52 years Continue reading...

Labor backbencher is calling for drastic intervention to secure supplies for the east coast

Plant inventories dating back to 1884 and nearly thrown away enable unique time-lapse study of biodiversity in Swiss meadowsFor two years, a team of Swiss researchers crossed the country by train, car and foot, carrying with them a red frame measuring 30 by 30 centimetres. At 277 sites they placed the frame in the grass and counted all of the plant species within it.The scientists were retracing a path set more than 100 years earlier, when two botanists had done the same thing in exactly the same meadows, long before such plant inventories became common. Continue reading...

With global heating on a dangerous trajectory, it would be unforgivable for the prime minister to miss the summit in BelemIn a month, this year's UN climate summit, Cop30, begins in Belem, Brazil - preceded by a key leaders' meeting. It is a crucial moment. The UN's scientists have yet to publish calculations based on the latest round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - as countries' emissions pledges are known. But Brazil'spresident, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has called leaders together because it is already clear that the current emissions pledges are nowhere near enough. The Paris 1.5C threshold was crossed last year. Without stronger action, that temporary breach will become irreversible - with devastating consequences for people and planet.Lula's diplomatic outreach to Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis a con job", suggests he is trying to bring key players into the fold ahead of Belem. Having heavyweights in the room can make all the difference. Ten years ago in Paris, world leaders' presence proved crucial to securing an ambitious deal. That's why it is important that Sir Keir Starmer attends. He may not be the most powerful world leader, but his presence is a moral and diplomatic imperative. If KingCharles is able to, he ought to go too. Soft power can help to rebuild the spirit of cooperation to keep thehopes in the Paris agreement alive. Continue reading...

Armed criminal groups tear down precious rainforest to capitalise on record gold prices, report findsAn illegal gold rush has cleared 140,000 hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Amazon and is accelerating as foreign, armed groups move into the region to profit from record gold prices, according to a report.About 540 square miles of land have been cleared for mining in the South American country since 1984, and the environmental destruction is spreading rapidly across the country, Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) and its Peruvian partner organisation, Conservacion Amazonica, found. Continue reading...

Report by joint intelligence committee delayed, with concerns expressed that it may not be publishedThe UK's national security is under severe threat from the climate crisis and the looming collapse of vital natural ecosystems, with food shortages and economic disaster potentially just years away, a powerful report by the UK's intelligence chiefs is due to warn.However, the report, which was supposed to launch on Thursday at a landmark event in London, has been delayed, and concerns have been expressed to the Guardian that it may have been blocked by number 10. Continue reading...

New research finds 90% of marine fish sold by major US retailers are wild-caught, including threatened or endangered species

Firm will instead invest A$2m a year in climate impact fund' supporting renewables and switching to EVsOne of the travel industry's most environmentally focused tour operators, Intrepid, is scrapping carbon offsets and abandoning its emissions targets as unreachable.The Australian-headquartered global travel company said it would instead invest A$2m (980,000) a year in an audited climate impact fund" supporting immediate practical measures such as switching to electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy. Continue reading...

Industrially made foods involve several ingredients and processes to put together, making it difficult to examine their true costIf you look at a package of M&Ms, one of the most popular candies in the US, you'll see some familiar ingredients: sugar, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter. But you'll see many more that aren't so recognizable: gum arabic, dextrin, carnauba wax, soya lecithin and E100.There are 34 ingredients in M&Ms, and, according to Mars, the company that produces the candy, at least 30 countries - from Ivory Coast to New Zealand - are involved in supplying them. Each has its own supply chain that transforms the raw materials into ingredients - cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye. Continue reading...

Customers on Charge Anytime deal who drive fewer than 700 miles a month say they will be left with higher billsElectric vehicle owners fear they will be left out of pocket after the energy supplier Ovo announced changes to a popular charging deal which could double the cost for some customers.Drivers who have an energy contract with the company can currently charge their vehicles at any time of day or night for 7p a kilowatt hour (kWh), making its Charge Anytime deal the cheapest on the market. Continue reading...

Campaigners say increase in exports mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia is unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism'Britain's exports of plastic waste to developing countries have soared by 84% in the first half of this year compared with last year, according to an analysis of trade data carried out for the Guardian.Campaigners described the rise in exports, mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia, as unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism". Continue reading...

A deterrent is one thing but I want revenge!

How well do you know your Australian birds? Could you identify them from their calls alone? Guardian Australia's resident pelican (not a real pelican) Matilda Boseley took to the streets of Melbourne to test the city's knowledge amid the Guardian bird of the year poll

NZ$180bn worth of housing and $26bn of infrastructure at risk of flooding and storm damage, new government report findsNew Zealand's oceans are warming 34% faster than the global average, with NZ$180bn (US$104bn) worth of housing at risk of flooding, a new report about the nation's marine environment has revealed.The ministry of the environment and Stats NZ's three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains - air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine - to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand's marine environment. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Letter from 170-plus organisations calls on government to drop proposed changes to planning lawPlans to water down protections for national parks such as Dartmoor and the Lake District in a kneejerk bid for growth" will be devastating for nature, more than 170 organisations have told the prime minister.The Treasury is understood to be pushing for a weakening of protections for England's national parks and national landscapes in changes to planning law to make it easier for developers to build houses and infrastructure projects. Continue reading...

Experts call for urgent strategy to end overfishing as report shows just 41% of stocks of species such as cod and mackerel considered healthyThe UK's populations of fish such as cod, herring and mackerel are still being grossly mismanaged" by politicians and overfished, despite hitting unhealthy levels, a study has found.British fish stocks have been under growing pressure for decades, but during the Brexit campaign some politicians promised that leaving the EU would allow the UK to take control. Continue reading...