Met Office says conditions likely to be ‘atrocious’ for much of UK with snow expected in HighlandsHeavy rain across Britain overnight has inundated roads and caused “treacherous” conditions for commuters, leaving some cars stuck in flood water.Much of the UK faced weather warnings until midday on Thursday, with the Met Office issuing yellow warnings for heavy rain. Train cancellations and delays were also expected. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#65XQ3)
Exclusive: Funding from rich countries is critical issue at Cop27 and poll shows many think UK has duty to provide itA significant majority of people in the UK think the country has a responsibility to pay for climate action in poorer and vulnerable countries, an opinion poll shows.The issue of rich, polluting countries providing substantial funding to developing countries is central to the UN’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt. Experts have warned that, without the flow of many billions of dollars to help cut emissions and cope with increasingly severe environmental impacts, there will not be the trust needed for the combined global action required to beat the crisis. Continue reading...
Prosecutor says official from Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries was arrested en route to a conference on protecting endangered speciesEight people in the US have been charged with smuggling endangered monkeys, including a Cambodian wildlife official arrested while travelling to a conference on protecting endangered species.The group – consisting of the Cambodian official, a colleague in that country’s wildlife agency and six people connected to a Hong Kong-based company – were involved in breeding long-tailed macaques for scientific and academic research, supplying them to labs in Florida and Texas. Continue reading...
Boardrooms around Australia will be noting what shareholders can do if you don’t take climate change issues seriouslyMike Cannon-Brookes and his collaborators have succeeded in sending shock waves throughout the boardrooms of major companies around Australia. His campaign, via shareholder activism, has resulted in a mass clean-out of the board of directors of Australia’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, AGL Energy. Perhaps more importantly it has resulted in AGL management substantially accelerating their exit out of coal.AGL’s decision to close Loy Yang A power station by 2035 probably helped precipitate the decision of the Victorian Labor party (facing an election on 26 November) to commit to seeing all coal power closed by 2035, and an expansion of renewable energy to 90% of the state’s power supply. Continue reading...
Activists from the environmental group Greenpeace have projected a film about energy costs on to Rishi Sunak's Yorkshire mansion. The video, which was projected from a nearby parked van, features images and voiceovers illustrating the cost of living crisis and the struggle many people face this coming winter with rising fuel prices. Sunak, who was in Bali for the G20 world leaders' conference at the time of the stunt, has told households to 'be careful' about their energy use to help reduce bills this coming winter. Polling commissioned by Greenpeace from Survation found that 64.6% of people in the UK have had to make cuts to other spending because of rising energy bills
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#65XD0)
Stark findings add pressure on Cop27 negotiators to deliver meaningful funding to vulnerable countriesThe heavy rain behind recent devastating flooding in Nigeria, Niger and Chad was made about 80 times more likely by the climate crisis, a study has found.The finding is the latest stark example of the severe impacts that global heating is already wreaking on communities, even with just a 1C rise in global temperature to date. It adds pressure on the world’s nations at the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt to deliver meaningful action on protecting and compensating affected countries. Continue reading...
by Patrick Greenfield and Fiona Harvey in Sharm el-Sh on (#65X3A)
President-elect says he will work to save Amazon rainforest and key ecosystems in rousing Cop27 speechPresident-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has told the world that “Brazil is back” at Cop27, vowing to begin undoing the environmental destruction seen under his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and work towards zero deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.Followed by a carnival atmosphere wherever he went on Wednesday, Lula told the climate summit that his administration would go further than ever before on the environment by cracking down on illegal gold mining, logging and agricultural expansion, and restoring climate-critical ecosystems. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Campaigners from Greenpeace beam film on to PM’s North Yorkshire mansion from van parked outsideEnergy crisis campaigners have projected scenes of people struggling with fuel poverty on to Rishi Sunak’s Yorkshire mansion on the eve of the autumn statement.Activists from Greenpeace parked a van outside the prime minister’s £1.5m constituency home and used it to beam the trailer of a hard-hitting documentary on to the facade of the Georgian manor house. Continue reading...
Lula says ‘Brazil is back’ and proposes Cop30 to be held in the Amazon as anxiety rises over some countries’ attempts to unpick climate commitmentsSUMMARY:The Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula for short), addressed Cop27 and promised that “Brazil is back”.He confirmed that Germany and Norway will reopen the Amazon fund, called for Cop30 to be held in the Amazon rainforest, and announced that he would be setting up a ministry for Indigenous people.Lula also said it was time to reform the UN and the global settlement. “The world has changed.”Elsewhere, Costa Rica, which has a new leader, has backed away from the coalition it cofounded to end oil and gas.Interest in a proposal to “phase down all fossil fuels” is growing, with even the US now giving (extremely qualified) support.There is continuing anxiety over the progress of glacial loss and damage negotiations. The Alliance of Small Island States, a negotiating bloc, fear many developed countries are backtracking on their commitment to make progress.There is anxiety countries are trying to backslide on their climate commitments, with the first tentative drafts of decisions from the summit showing attempts to unpick agreements and water down promises. Continue reading...
Excess profits look set for a levy in the autumn statement – but first define ‘excess’ and for whom“It’s like entering a lottery: you know something’s coming your way, but you’ve got no idea exactly what,” says one chief executive of a large UK electricity generator about the looming windfall tax on his sector. It’s a fair comment. Government thinking on the generators – as opposed to the North Sea oil and gas producers, who already have a levy – has been spinning like a wind turbine for six months.Back in May, then-chancellor Rishi Sunak said he was “urgently evaluating” the scale of excess profits being made by generators on the entirely sensible grounds that not all windfall profits have been made by firms producing dirty hydrocarbons. Nuclear power plants, windfarms, solar farms, hydro projects and biomass burners may also be doing very nicely thanks to a UK energy system that ties the price of electricity to the price of gas. Continue reading...
by Bibi van der Zee, Patrick Greenfield and Damien Ga on (#65WES)
Brazil’s president elect beat Jair Bolsonaro, under whose watch deforestation had rocketed, in last month’s electionThis liveblog is now closedA long-mooted deposit return scheme in the UK will not be in place for a further two years, the UK environment secretary said on Wednesday, writes Fiona Harvey, Guardian environment correspondent.“It will be another couple of years at least,” Thérèse Coffey told journalists at Cop27. “Scotland has not started theirs yet. We are getting on with our environmental targets and a business plan and Elms. We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the 25 year environment plan.”Let’s talk to the secretary-general of the UN for the next op to be done in Brazil, in the Amazon. I think it is important that the people who defend the Amazon know the region and the concrete reality. Continue reading...
In the short time that we have to prevent catastrophic global heating, population rises are irrelevant, writes Ian Brown, while Daniel Rodriguez says the problem is overconsumption in the westI am hugely disappointed to see John Vidal suggesting that slowing population growth can help solve the climate crisis, when he fully acknowledges that the rich generate orders of magnitude more emissions than the poor (It should not be controversial to say a population of 8 billion will have a grave impact on the climate, 15 November). Population growth will cause many problems, not least increased resource consumption, but our ability to “solve” climate change in the here and now has nothing to do with future population growth because of the relative timescales involved. To argue otherwise is not controversial, it is merely wrong.We have less than 10 years to bend the curve downwards on emissions, whereas doing the same with population is impossible. As the late Swedish academic Hans Rosling made clear, global heating is the fault of the overconsumption of the richest billion people on Earth and the next richest billion trying to adopt the same way of life. It has very little to do with the poorest billions, where future population growth is concentrated. Continue reading...
California, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Iowa and Tennessee suffered most disasters, with over 300m people living in those countiesNinety percent of the counties in the US suffered a weather disaster between 2011 and 2021, according to a new report.Some endured as many as 12 federally declared disasters over those 11 years. More than 300 million people – 93% of the population – live in these counties. Continue reading...
Figure of £559m comes day before government is expected to expand windfall tax on power sectorThe electricity generator and network company SSE has reported a more than tripling of profits thanks to soaring energy prices – a day before the government is expected to expand a windfall tax on the power sector.The company, which is based in Perth, Scotland, and runs gas-fired power stations alongside hydroelectric plants and windfarms, reported a 221% increase in adjusted pre-tax profits year on year to £559m in the six months to the end of September. Continue reading...
After years of progress, a surge in rebel attacks has revived painful memories around the park in DRC, which also faces a threat of drilling within its boundariesWhen Justin Katenga arrived at Matebe power station at dawn, the fighting was already under way. He had woken up a few miles away, in the headquarters of Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to the sound of heavy artillery echoing across the valley, underscoring the urgency of the evacuation planned for civilian staff in the facilities across the river from the frontline.As Katenga entered the plant’s perimeter with his team, bullets whistled above their heads, lodging in the buildings’ walls; one engineer fainted in fear on the spot. Katenga, the deputy south sector warden of the park, took time to talk to the guards who had stayed behind to secure the site. The M23 rebel militia – fighting government forces in the area – had been gaining ground and were expected to break through and overrun that section of the park. Yet abandoning it would cut off 80% of the power supply to Goma, the capital city of North Kivu province and home to 2 million people. Continue reading...
by Ruth Michaelson and Patrick Greenfield on (#65WC5)
Gulf petrostate hired PR firms to stress its part in next year’s climate summit before this year’s had begunThe United Arab Emirates has been using its role as the host of next year’s UN climate conference to launder its international reputation, long before this year’s event – Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh – began.The Emirates, which will host Cop28 in November 2023, hired public relations and lobbying agencies specifically to promote its role as the future host before this year’s conference had began, an unusual move that exceeded the promotional efforts of past host nations and suggests an increased Emirati role in this year’s Cop27 conference. Continue reading...
by Patrick Greenfield in Sharm el-Sheikh on (#65WC6)
Leaders say December biodiversity summit in Montreal is ‘unprecedented’ chance to turn tide on nature lossThe architects of the Paris agreement have urged world leaders to reach an ambitious sister deal for nature at the Cop15 biodiversity conference this December while warning that limiting global heating to 1.5C is impossible without protecting and restoring ecosystems.On biodiversity day at the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt, Christiana Figueres, Laurence Tubiana, Laurent Fabius and Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who helped design the Paris agreement, said that Cop15 would be an “unprecedented” opportunity to turn the tide on nature loss. Continue reading...
Russian event at Cop27 interrupted by protesters repeatedly shouting ‘you are war criminals’. This live blog is closedThree days before India’s environment minister boarded a flight to Egypt for this year’s UN climate summit, Cop27, the country’s finance minister was busy with a new announcement.“India needs greater investment in coal production,” said Nirmala Sitharaman at the Delhi launch of India’s biggest ever coalmine auction, where 141 new sites for coalmines will be sold off to the highest bidder.Sustainable food systems deliver food security and nutrition for all, without compromising the welfare of future generations through harmful economic, social and environmental practices. In the context of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, this means taking a particular focus on sustainable food production, nutrition and dietary shifts, as well as food loss and waste.If food security and the livelihoods of farmers are truly to be at the heart of climate negotiations in the future, then food systems need to be recognised in the Koronivia Process and this process decisively taken forward at Cop27.Part of the challenge is to ensure that the Koronivia Process addresses food systems as a whole -- from production, to nutrition, to diets. This would mean a stronger set of outcomes for the benefit of people, nature, and climate alike. Continue reading...
Independent inquiry to look at possible role of freeport dredging and chemical pollutant in die-offsThe UK government is to set up an independent expert panel to investigate the cause of the mass die-offs of crabs and lobsters on the north-east coast of England, it has announced.The panel will consider the impact of dredging around a freeport development in Teesside and the presence of pyridine, a chemical pollutant, among other potential causes, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said. Continue reading...
Climate activists in Austria have attacked a painting by Gustav Klimt, with one throwing a black, oily liquid at it and another glueing himself to the glass covering the painting. Members of Letzte Generation Österreich (Last Generation Austria) tweeted that they had targeted the 1915 painting Death and Life at the Leopold Museum in Vienna to protest against their government’s use of fossil fuels. After throwing the liquid at the artwork, which was not damaged, one activist was pushed away by a museum guard while another glued his hand to the glass over the painting
Brazil president-elect’s decision to fly on a jet owned by a health industry mogul criticised by both opponents and supportersBrazil’s president-elect has faced a backlash at home after flying to the Cop27 environmental summit on a private jet owned by a millionaire businessman.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected on 30 October and has vowed to undo much of the environmental damage wrought by the outgoing far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Continue reading...
Return of one of one of Britain’s rarest fish confirmed after DNA found in water samples above fish passesFor nearly two centuries, one of Britain’s rarest fish has been shut out of its spawning grounds by large weirs.But the endangered twaite shad has now returned to its historic spawning habitat on the River Severn, thanks to four new fish passes that enable the migratory fish to negotiate weirs and swim up river to lay eggs. Continue reading...
Chemical exposure and lifestyle choices probably to blame for reduction resulting in ‘sharp decline in probability of conception’The rate at which human sperm counts are decreasing has more than doubled since the turn of the century, and the mean level has dropped below a threshold that makes conception significantly more difficult.These findings are part of a new peer-reviewed study published today in the Human Reproduction Update journal that includes data from 53 countries and is the first meta-analysis to check levels in Central America, South America and Asia. Continue reading...
An ambitious forest management plan in the country’s Carpathian mountains is bringing state foresters ever closer to the dens of brown bears, a protected speciesWe’re on the hunt for brown bear dens in Poland’s Carpathian mountains, on the border with Ukraine. The lairs lie within the gnarled caverns that naturally form at the base of decaying fir trees when they get to about 130 years old. Each den is slightly different – some have rocky bottoms, others have been lined with beech leaves, making a sort of woodland mattress. Looking inside gives an insight into the character of each bear, just like visiting a friend’s house.We pass half a dozen caverns in a 15-hectare (37-acre) area on the steep, rocky woodland slope of Lutowiska forest district, just outside Bieszczady national park. There are an estimated 110 brown bears left in Poland and this slope is dense with dens and likely to be home to one mother and one or two cubs, with many others passing through. Continue reading...
Data shows E coli and intestinal enterococci at levels unsafe for swimming at Wolvercote Mill Stream, near OxfordThe only official bathing water area on the River Thames has failed tests for bacteria associated with sewage pollution, data shows.A section of Wolvercote Mill Stream, at Port Meadow, two miles outside Oxford, was designated as an official bathing area in April after a campaign by local people. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Raw sewage releases exploit ‘monopoly’ of suppliers, argue corporate wrongdoing specialistsWater companies could be forced to pay their customers hundreds of millions in fines due to sewage pollution, a leading firm specialising in corporate wrongdoing has said.Fideres LLP, which has conducted investigations into issues ranging from Covid test prices to cryptocurrency scams, is now setting its sights on England’s water companies. Continue reading...
England’s tally of 80 confirmed incidents is second-highest figure since records beganThere were 108 confirmed incidents of illegal persecution of birds of prey across Britain in 2021, according to the RSPB’s annual bird crime report.England’s tally of 80 confirmed persecution incidents was the second-highest figure since records began in 1990, after an unprecedented surge in wildlife crime during the pandemic year of 2020. That year, a record 137 known incidents of bird of prey persecution were logged by the RSPB, with lockdowns seemingly creating an increased opportunity to kill raptors without detection. Continue reading...
by Damian Carrington Environment editor on (#65V33)
The Guardian and dozens of international media titles publish a joint editorial calling for radical thinking on how to fund climate action in poorer countries
This editorial calling for action from world leaders on the climate crisis is published today by more than 30 media organisations in more than 20 countries
The case for rapid transition to renewables is stronger, but some developments are making it harderOn a breezy day in May, the Met Office issued a pithy forecast which would prove telling: “Quite windy.” In fact, on 25 May the UK set a record for wind power generation, 19.9 gigawatts – enough to cover more than half of Britain’s electricity needs, or boil 3.5m kettles. So plentiful was the wind power that National Grid was forced to ask some turbines in the west of Scotland to shut down, as the network was unable to store such a large amount of electricity.The episode represents a landmark which underlines both the progress of Britain’s renewables industry and the potholes in the road to replacing fossil fuels. Just six months earlier, global leaders met in Glasgow with renewable energy high on the agenda. Continue reading...
Combined emissions from 15 companies surpass Russia’s and equate to more than 80% of EU’s methane footprint, study findsThe combined methane emissions of 15 of the world’s largest meat and dairy companies are higher than those of several of the world’s largest countries, including Russia, Canada and Australia, according to a new study.The analysis from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Changing Markets Foundation found that emissions by the companies – five meat and 10 dairy corporations – equate to more than 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint and account for 11.1% of the world’s livestock-related methane emissions. Continue reading...
Environment | The Guardian