Environment | The Guardian

Communications role follows year in which campaigners targeted bank over environmental stanceBarclays has kicked off a search for a director to champion its climate efforts, after a bruising year in which the UK bank was targeted by campaigners over its environmental record.The high street lender recently closed applications for a climate communications director based in London, which is believed to be one of the most senior roles dedicated to coordinating its public response to climate pressures. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Create Streets proposes building on Britain's road belt' rather than its green belt amid housing crisisNeedlessly wide roads should be torn up and replaced with boulevards of new housing, a thinktank led by the UK government's most senior urbanism adviser has proposed, in a move likely to delight green belt campaigners but rile the motoring lobby.Create Streets wants sweeping T-junctions tightened, vast roundabouts tamed" and expressways narrowed according to a paper to be circulated to ministers and seen by the Guardian. Continue reading...

Death toll reaches 12 as hundreds still thought to be marooned after deadly downpoursRescuers in central Greece were working through the night to locate people trapped in villages deluged by flood waters as the death toll from rainstorms rose to at least 12.Emergency services, backed by elite commando units and an ever-growing army of volunteers, sought to find hundreds still thought to be marooned in homes five days after downpours, described as the worst in the country's history, struck. Continue reading...

Industry figures and the TUC warn of missed carbon reduction targets and lost jobs unless government boosts green investmentFears are growing that existing offshore wind projects could be shelved, after industry insiders warned that disastrous" handling by the government had created a big shortfall in future renewable energy.Ministers revealed last week that no additional offshore windfarms will go ahead in the UK after the latest government auction. No bids were made in the auction, after the government ignored warnings that offshore schemes were no longer economically viable under the current system. Continue reading...

Ambulance service uncertain of the species that bit the man but says symptoms point to a brown snake

Amended motion calls on party to take a practical approach to lowering carbon emissions as a substantive move to nuclear power is made'

The prime minister suggested to the summit that he wanted to limit the impact of green measures on British consumersRead more: Rishi who? Sunak slips down pecking order in scramble to court IndiaRishi Sunak has said he will resist hair shirt" policies designed to reduce carbon emissions and achieve Britain's net zero pledge, amid an intensifying Tory row over the party's commitment to tackling the climate crisis.Tensions have been growing within the party all summer over its green policies, with some cabinet figures and the right of the party calling for a rethink on measures such as the phasing out of gas boilers and the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. The prime minister has also backed maxing out" oil and gas reserves. Continue reading...

Conservation groups say plan contains no meaningful action to address bird's key threat of native forest logging

Officials say many people are still trapped in central areas of the country hit by Storm DanielFirefighters backed by the army have rescued hundreds of people from villages in central Greece cut off by floods that have claimed at least 10 lives.More than 2,850 people have been rescued since the beginning of the bad weather," Yannis Artopios, a fire department spokesperson told the broadcaster Mega on Saturday. Continue reading...

UN hopes to galvanise summit talks by persuading world leaders to commit to stop burning coal, oil and gas, despite industry lobbyingA global push to commit to phasing out fossil fuels is gathering new momentum before a crucial UN climate conference this autumn, despite stiff opposition from oil-producing countries.Campaigners are ramping up efforts to put an undertaking to stop burning not just coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, but also oil and gas on the UN agenda ahead of the Cop28 summit in Dubai in late November, the Observer has learned. Continue reading...

London Wildlife Trust asks volunteers to seek out endangered beetles' strongholdsThey were celebrated as ye country comets" by the poet Andrew Marvell but glowworms are defying light pollution to still shine their lights in the city of London.Now volunteers and enthusiasts are being sought to count and save the much-celebrated but declining beetles, whose females emit a remarkable bright green bioluminescent beam to attract males. Continue reading...

Greek PM tours crisis-hit area amid fears death toll could rise as water levels continue to rise in some placesHelicopters and lifeboats have been deployed to rescue hundreds of villagers stranded by flood waters in central Greece after rainstorms left at least 10 people dead.Touring the crisis-hit area of Thessaly, 185 miles north of Athens, Greece's prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, vowed to do whatever is humanly possibly" to assist residents in areas deluged by torrential rain that also hit neighbouring Bulgaria and Turkey. A total of 22 people have died across the three countries since Tuesday. Continue reading...

Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deathsLife-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said. Continue reading...

Governments failing to cut emissions fast enough to meet Paris agreement goals and avoid disaster, major report says

Lack of interest was widely expected after government failed to heed warnings about soaring costs

Rose Abramoff was one of two protesters who helped temporarily shut down construction of Mountain Valley pipelineTwo women climbed in the dark down the banks of the Greenbrier River in West Virginia on Thursday morning and locked themselves to a massive drill, stopping work on a controversial oil pipeline project.One of the women, Rose Abramoff, is a climate scientist and by participating in temporarily shutting down the pipeline construction she is believed to be the first American climate scientist to risk a felony in an act of climate protest against fossil fuel projects. Continue reading...

Sightings of birds, which appear to have come from Yucatan in Mexico, reported in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and the CarolinasFlamingos have been spotted as far north in the US as Ohio and Pennsylvania in recent days, after they were blown off course by the powerful Hurricane Idalia that hit Florida late last month, experts say.The distinctive birds have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, also in Texas and further north from their typical habitats, in Kentucky and even Ohio, Jerry Lorenz, the state director of Audubon Florida, told CNN. They were also seen in Franklin county in southern Pennsylvania on Thursday, NPR reported. Continue reading...

Radical Road at foot of Arthur's Seat, beside Holyrood Palace, was closed in 2018 after rock falls led to safety concernsA footpath built by Scottish revolutionaries two centuries ago in the royal park beside Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh is at the centre of a modern revolt over public access rights.The Radical Road was laid around the foot of Salisbury crags, a spectacular basalt cliff that curves around the foot of Arthur's Seat, by unemployed Scottish weavers who had threatened an insurrection against rapid industrialisation in 1820. Continue reading...

The US Open semi-final between Coco Gauff and Karolina Muchova was interrupted by climate protesters early in the second set, with one of the protesters glueing their feet to the floor of the stands at Arthur Ashe stadium. Gauff was a set up and holding serve to open the second when a disturbance broke out in the upper reaches of the stadium and shouting disrupted play. As the players looked into the stands, security staff went into the section around the disturbance. More than a dozen law enforcement officers arrived on the scene and three protesters were removed. Another, who had been handcuffed by police but was affixed to the floor, caused further delay to the resumption of the match as medics attempted to extricate the protester safely

Oil company is latest firm to act amid indications that carbon credits do nothing to mitigate global heatingShell has become the latest large company to pull back from carbon offsets amid concerns many have no environmental impact, it has emerged, as the Carbon Trust discontinues its carbon neutral" labelling scheme based on offsetting.The FTSE 100 oil company, one of the leading proponents of carbon offsetting, abandoned targets to invest up to $100m (80m) a year in carbon credit schemes and purchase 120m nature offsets a year by 2030 in June, the oil major has confirmed. This is part of a broader watering down of Shell's climate ambitions. Continue reading...

The inaugural Africa Climate Summit was held in Nairobi, Kenya, this week, drawing delegates from across the continent, Europe and the US as well as climate campaigners, who filled the streets outside the convention centre Continue reading...

Europe-wide formation is partly responsible for Storm Daniel, while the north of the continent has high temperaturesAn Omega block has been in place over Europe this week, leading to some extreme weather for many. An Omega block is a synoptic setup consisting of a high-pressure region sandwiched between two low-pressure regions, creating a shape resembling the Greek letter omega.Storm Daniel developed over the Ionian Sea partly due to this setup, causing devastating flooding across central and eastern Greece. The region's warm seas at this time of year also helped produce the moisture needed for this storm. Continue reading...

Historic England lists 12 buildings in recognition of town's role in recycling yarn from all over worldIt's a Yorkshire town perhaps best known for its big market or as the birthplace of Betty Boothroyd but a national heritage body is now adding a more surprising label to Dewsbury: the greenest town in 19th-century England.Historic England has undertaken new research that reveals the importance of the town as an international centre for recycled cloth during the Industrial Revolution. Continue reading...

The best of this week's wildlife photographs, including wild horses, a tired falcon and a hungry snake Continue reading...

Exclusive: Fourfold increase on 2022 sees enough vapes discarded to create 5,000 electric car batteriesFive million single-use vapes are being thrown away in the UK every week, a fourfold increase on 2022, research has found.This amounts to eight vapes a second being discarded, with the lithium in the products enough to create 5,000 electric car batteries a year. Continue reading...

Hong Kong reported 158.1mm of rainfall in the space of an hour, the highest since records began in 1884. Local authorities said various districts had been flooded and emergency services were conducting rescue operations. Members of the public were instructed to stay in a safe place

Two climate scientists who recently left division tell inquiry former colleagues have been directed to remain quiet'

Liberal leader says Coalition committed' to policy after Barnaby Joyce labelled its cost utterly untenable'

Four days of torrential rain have lashed central Greece, triggering landslides and causing widespread destruction. Rescue services evacuated residents waiting on the top floors of their homes. Authorities said the death toll from Storm Daniel rose to four

Investment by Stellantis has turned the Vauxhall plant into the UK's first dedicated to producing electric vehicles at scaleIn nearly 60 years of making cars Ellesmere Port's Vauxhall factory had come close to the end several times, said the Unite union convener John Cooper, standing beside the body of an electric van on the production line. Last-minute negotiations saved the plant each time, but it was a close-run thing.Things have changed now: on Thursday the site began production as the UK's first factory dedicated purely to producing electric vehicles at scale. It is a landmark moment in the shift away from fossil fuels for the British automotive industry. Continue reading...

A golden orb has been discovered on the ocean floor off the Pacific coast of Alaska. The smooth object with an intriguing hole at the centre was found at the depth of about two miles by a remote-controlled submarine explorer. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US, made the discovery. Researchers are conducting tests to work out what the object is. Continue reading...

Government's goals of reaching 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 and reducing energy bills may be at riskNo energy companies have submitted bids in the government's offshore wind auction, sources have said, in what would be a significant blow to Rishi Sunak's plans to meet climate targets and drive down energy bills.Industry insiders suggested not a single firm had taken part in the auction for financial support contracts after the government ignored warnings that the offer was too low to reflect soaring costs. Continue reading...

Countries forced to choose between climate resilience, fighting poverty and paying debts, says Ban Ki-moonThe flow of climate adaptation finance to Africa must increase up to tenfold by 2035 to meet the deepening impacts of climate change, according to new research.As the African climate summit continued in Nairobi, campaigners spoke of the desperate need to get funding to people who are already being impacted by climate change. Africa, the most impacted region by climate change, receives only 3% of global climate finance. Continue reading...

Observers worry about the chilling effects on protests after Atlanta indicts demonstrators under organized crime lawA sweeping indictment announced in Atlanta alleging that opposition to a police and fire department training center known as Cop City" adds up to a criminal conspiracy has observers concerned about a chilling effect on protest everywhere across the US.The indictment of 61 people under the state's racketeering, or Rico statute, is clearly intended to chill larger political participation", said Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, an environmental and social justice legal organization. Continue reading...

Legislation aims to dim the city's night-time lights that pose a threat to millions of migratory birds passing throughIn a few days, two beams will illuminate the Manhattan sky in a tribute to those killed in the September 11 attacks. But the blazing columns of light also attract thousands of migratory birds, causing them to veer off course. They become trapped and disoriented, circling the spotlights until they are switched off.New York can be a deadly place for birds. Each year, songbirds, hummingbirds, shorebirds and birds of prey cross the city on their way to and from breeding and wintering grounds across the western hemisphere. And each year, sanitation workers sweep the streets of carcasses after up to a quarter of a million birds collide with buildings. Continue reading...

Beekeepers speak of the disastrous impact of pest that has wiped out nearly 300,000 hives so far

Speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' summit in Indonesia, the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said 'greater cooperation' was desperately needed on the climate front.'We have just learned that this past June, July and August were officially the hottest three-month period on record,' Guterres said. 'The so-called dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting'

Up to 180 vehicles can be charged at any one time in as little as 15 minutes at the just-opened GigahubThe UK's largest electric vehicle charging hub has opened at Birmingham's NEC conference centre with the power to charge up to 180 vehicles at a time in as little as 15 minutes.The multimillion-pound site will provide the UK's highest concentration of super-fast chargers in one location after the biggest-ever private investment in Britain's charging infrastructure. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Study shows resilience workers, mostly refugees and immigrants, poorly protected as top firms pad their pockets by cutting costs'Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found.The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires. Continue reading...

Yemi Amu, founder of New York City's first outdoor aquaponics farm, combines growing fish and growing plants without soil, and teaches residents its benefitsNestled between a Trader Joe's and New York City's East River is Oko Farms, a little hub of greenery in Brooklyn that looks out on to Manhattan's skyline. Fenced off in the corner of an expansive construction site, it's not easy to locate.Past the gates is a 10,000 sq ft plot brimming with beds of lemongrass, cabbage, okra, peas, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, onions and carrots. They are sprawling patches of greenery, accessed by a narrow wooden walkway that interlaces throughout the property. But unlike most urban gardens, the plant beds have plastic tubes stuck to them. The tubes are connected to large baths of tilapia, carp, catfish and perch, and circulate water between the two. Continue reading...

To mark Threatened Species Day, Perth zoo has shared footage of 13 newborn numbat joeys. With less than 2,000 remaining in the wild, it is hoped these baby marsupials will contribute to the survival of the species. Careers and zookeepers have provided around-the-clock care for the joeys, raising three by hand after one of the mothers was showing signs of mismothering. They are expected to be released into the wild by the end of the year

Energy industry experts say steep rise in costs could result in few projects submitting bidsBritain's offshore wind industry is expecting to lose out on financial help for projects toward meeting the UK's climate goals, because soaring inflation means developers are not able to compete for crucial government support.Ministers are expected to announce the results of the latest auction for financial support contracts this Friday, but energy industry insiders suggest it could be a damp squib in a potential blow to the UK's climate goals. Continue reading...

Using explosives is illegal, wasteful and devastating to marine life and people's livelihoods. Yet in Sri Lanka and around the world it's thriving as a quick and easy route to a lucrative haulThe immediate aftermath of a blast is obvious, says Wilson Perera: the ocean turns murky with blood and is strewn with fish that are missing eyes or other organs. Those fish that are wounded swim off to die elsewhere. Their carcasses wash ashore days later.Everything within a 100-metre radius of the blast is destroyed - coral reefs, marine plants and animals," says Perera. Continue reading...

Tanya Plibersek announces crayfish, frogs, insects and plants among wildlife now under threat amid renewed calls for reform

Environmental and community groups have filed lawsuit as the water body shrinks from overuse, hastening its demiseEnvironmental and community groups have sued Utah officials over failures to save its iconic Great Salt Lake from irreversible collapse.The largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere has been steadily shrinking, as more and more water has been diverted away from the lake to irrigate farmland, feed industry and water lawns. A megadrought across the US south-west, accelerated by global heating, has hastened the lake's demise. Continue reading...

Seven oil and gas leases canceled by interior department, which said sale during final days of Trump administration were flawedThe US interior department has canceled seven oil and gas leases in Alaska's Arctic national wildlife refuge that were part of a sale held in the waning days of the Trump administration, arguing the sale was legally flawed.The interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said with her decision to cancel the remaining leases no one will have rights to drill for oil in one of the most sensitive landscapes on earth". However, a 2017 law mandates another lease sale by late 2024. Administration officials said they intend to comply with the law. Continue reading...

At least 12 people die across three countries as torrential rainstorms cause severe damage to buildings, roads and bridgesAt least 12 people have died in Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria as flash floods from torrential rainstorms turned rivers into torrents, swept away bridges and inundated streets, homes and public buildings.Greece's climate crisis and civil protection minister, Vassilis Kikilias, said after an emergency cabinet meeting: This is the most extreme phenomenon in terms of the maximum amount of rain in a 24-hour period since records began in the country." Continue reading...

Nairobi Declaration, issued at first African Climate Summit, also includes call for global carbon taxesAfrican leaders have called for debt relief across the continent to allow countries to get on with responding to the climate crisis, as they publish the Nairobi Declaration at the end of the first African climate summit.The declaration, which had a heavy focus on climate finance, also included a call for global carbon taxes, and for increased representation of African and other countries in the governance of multilateral banks. Continue reading...

Eighteen new coal projects represent carbon bomb' that should not be approved, conservationists say

Government's choice of energy regulator boss criticised as putting the fox in charge of the hen house'