Reducing urban heat islands, greening local areas and using heat pumps for air conditioning can also play a role

Voluntary climate commitments were supposed to be a step towards progress. A change in political climate has revealed their weaknessesEarlier this month, as Nordic countries were hit with an unprecedented heatwave and wildfires in the US began spurting fire clouds", Barclays pulled out of the net zero banking alliance. The story may have seemed less alarming than extreme weather, but it has existential implications, as the finance sector quietly surrenders its former climate commitments.The initiative forms part of the Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a voluntary network of banks that Mark Carney, formerly the UN's special envoy on climate action and now Canada's prime minister, launched in 2021. At the time, the alliance, which encourages banks and asset managers to work towards the goals of the Paris agreement, seemed like an optimistic step in the right direction. Mr Carney described it as a breakthrough". Continue reading...

French officials says heatwave in southern Europe complicates efforts to contain biggest wildfire since 1949Tourist trails have been closed on Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy as firefighters tackle a huge blaze on the volcano's slopes, while officials warned of another challenging day" for those working to contain France's biggest wildfire since 1949.The wildfire on Mount Vesuvius, close to Naples, broke out a few days ago and by Saturday afternoon had stretched to about 3km (1.9 miles) wide, destroying hundreds of hectares of woodland and killing wild animals. Thick smoke could be seen from Pompeii and Naples. Continue reading...

Scientists say lightning bugs are having a revival this year - but they're concerned about the insects' long-term viabilityMax Vogel, a 29-year-old public defense attorney, was picnicking with friends in early August at Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, when he noticed flashes of light appear in the air around him.They were fireflies, bioluminescent insects that the Washington DC native had not seen while living in Oregon, where there are few, if any. For many Americans who live where fireflies do, their flashing lights at dusk are a tangible rite of summer - though one that may now be under threat. Continue reading...

US Bureau of Land management is working to rapidly strip protections to largest tract of land in the USThe Trump administration's plan to expand oil and gas drilling in a 23m acre reserve on the Arctic Ocean is sparking an impassioned response, amid fears it threatens Arctic wildlife, undermines the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives and imperils one of the fastest-warming ecosystems on Earth.More than a quarter of a million people have responded to the 2 June proposal from the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to roll back protections on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the largest tract of public land in the US. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Polluted water was released into loch near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes, says watchdogRadioactive water from the base that holds the UK's nuclear bombs was allowed to leak into the sea after old pipes repeatedly burst, official files have revealed.The radioactive material was released into Loch Long, a sea loch near Glasgow in western Scotland, because the Royal Navy failed to properly maintain a network of 1,500 water pipes on the base, a regulator found. Continue reading...

Prof Miles Richardson says people risk extinction of experience' in the natural world without new policiesPeople's connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study.Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes - with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions. Continue reading...

Canyon fire in Ventura county, north of Los Angeles, is 25% contained but still growing, officials sayHundreds of firefighters and first responders are working to contain a rapidly growing brush fire in a mountainous area of southern California that has forced thousands of evacuations.The Canyon fire erupted in a rural, sparsely populated area of Ventura county on Thursday afternoon and quickly exploded in size, spreading east into Los Angeles county. By 3pm on Friday afternoon, the blaze was 25% contained but covered nearly 5,400 acres (21.9 sq km) , according to authorities. Continue reading...

Campaigners had urged Lula to veto the bill entirely, but many have welcomed his alterationsBrazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has signed into law a controversial bill that scientists and environmentalists had dubbed the devastation bill", but vetoed key articles that would have in effect dismantled the country's environmental licensing system.On Friday, the final day to either sanction or veto the law, Lula struck down or amended 63 of the 398 provisions in a bill that, as approved by congress last month, had been regarded as the most significant setback to Brazil's environmental protections in four decades. Continue reading...

Con Edison, city's monopoly utility, cut off 88,000 households in first half of 2025 as climate crisis drives extreme temperaturesAn energy company seeking to hike utility bills in New York City by 11% disconnected more than 88,000 households during the first six months of 2025, signaling a crackdown on families struggling to cover rising energy costs even as the climate crisis drives extreme temperatures.Con Edison, the monopoly utility that provides electricity to 3.6m homes across the country's largest city and neighboring Westchester county, disconnected almost 2.5% of all its customers between January and June this year - triple the total number of families left without power in 2024. One in five disconnected homes remain without power for at least a week. Continue reading...

Sightings confirmed in County Durham and Suffolk as southern small white flutters in from European mainlandBritain has a new species of butterfly: the southern small white has continued its rapid colonisation of northern Europe by flying across the North Sea.The species looks very similar to the native small, large and green-veined whites but two individuals spotted in County Durham and Suffolk this summer have been verified as Pieris mannii, which was once confined to southern Europe. Continue reading...

UK Health Security Agency warns of potential rise in deaths as hot weather sweeps in from MondayA yellow heat health alert has been issued across much of England for the start of next week as forecasters predict another heatwave.Temperatures could reach the mid-30s across central, southern and eastern areas of the country by Wednesday, the Met Office has said. Continue reading...

Experts warn country is in danger of becoming dirty man of Europe' as it falls to bottom of bathing water leaderboardEnglish swimming waters are five times more likely to be polluted than those in the EU, new research has revealed.Experts have said that the country is in danger of becoming the dirty man of Europe" again as it falls at the bottom of the leaderboard for bathing water which is free of bacterial contaminants. Continue reading...

Lek Chailert devoted her life to rescuing abused elephants. Now caring for 120 of them, she fears for their future in AsiaSaengduean Lek Chailert was five years old when she saw an elephant for the first time. It was in chains, lumbering past her home in rural Thailand on its way to help loggers pull trees from the forest. Back then, she saw the giant mammals like everyone else - as animals that served humans. But that changed the day she heard a scream from the forest.Chailert was 16 when she heard the terrible noise. She scrambled through the trees until she found the source: a bull elephant scrabbling in the mud as it tried and failed to drag a log out of a ditch. Every failed attempt was met with punishment from the loggers and mahout, the elephant keeper. Continue reading...

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

Plans have provoked outrage from communities in areas of Great Britain expected to host new infrastructureThe government is pushing head with a plan to offer those who live near new electricity pylons a discount of 2,500 from their energy bills over the next 10 years to ease the backlash against its clean power plans.Thousands of households within half a kilometre of new or upgraded electricity infrastructure could each receive up to 250 off their annual energy bill from next year to help speed up the rollout of infrastructure critical to the government's targets. Continue reading...

News Corp broadsheet puts Pollyannish spin on study that found a record decline in the world's largest coral reef. Plus: Grok goes woke

Otterpool Park's 8,500 homes will run on solar power and batteries - with enough renewable energy to help keep lights on elsewhereOne of Britain's first all-electric towns to be built with almost no reliance on fossil fuels could soon help to power the grid with renewable energy.The developers of a new garden town in Kent have struck a deal with a leading energy infrastructure company to design and operate a smart" energy grid, which could mean its 8,500 households act as a virtual power plant for the rest of the country. Continue reading...

Duplomb law' provision to allow use of acetamiprid, toxic to pollinators, found not to abide by environmental charterFrance's top constitutional authority has ruled against the reintroduction of a pesticide that is harmful to ecosystems, saying it is unconstitutional.The decision on Thursday night deals a blow to the government. It comes after weeks of opposition from the left, environmentalists and doctors, and a record-breaking 2m signatures on a petition against a bill that would have allowed a pesticide banned in France in 2020 to come back into use. Continue reading...

Trees to remain as memorial to Marline Anderson, who died recently, and who planted them in Battersea in 1980sThe pair of subtropical grapefruit trees have stood, slightly incongruously, on a street in south-west London for 40-odd years since Marline Anderson brought them over from Grenada - a gift" from her homeland - and planted them in her front garden.The trees will remain as a memorial to Anderson, who died recently, after campaigners seeking to protect them were told on Thursday they had been successful. Continue reading...

Environmental group says industry figures will be obstructive and aim to reduce overall ambition of meetingMore than 200 industry lobbyists are attending the UN's meeting to hammer out a global plastics treaty, raising fears that moves to prevent runaway plastic production may be undermined.The 234 lobbyists from the oil, petrochemical and plastics industries outnumber the combined delegations of all 27 EU member states, and far exceed the number of people attending with the delegation of scientists as well as Indigenous peoples at the Geneva talks. Continue reading...

Overall clearing was up 3%, with almost half in Great Barrier Reef catchment areas while 21% was remnant woodland, government data shows

Park bosses say they're running visitor centers and even cleaning bathrooms as remaining staff try to keep sites openAcross the US's fabled but overstretched national parks, unusual scenes are playing out this summer following budget cuts by Donald Trump's administration. Archeologists are staffing ticket booths, ecologists are covering visitor centers and the superintendents of parks are even cleaning the toilets.The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining cherished wildernesses and sites of cultural importance from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, has lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, with the administration seeking to gut the service's budget by a third. Continue reading...

The recent hopeful surge of some wildlife isn't down to us. But in an era of climatic decline, it shows the resilience of our fellow speciesButterflies flit across my vision wherever I go this summer. Screams of swifts have been unusually audible in cities. Hedges are laden with blackberries. Hordes of plump wood pigeons devour my kale. Fruit trees bow with plums and apples. There are wasps galore and each morning I'm woken by a raucous new neighbour: a herring gull that's moved on to the factory roof next door.Wild nature, in Britain this year, is visibly abundant. Most of us share similar stories. But is there really a blizzard of butterflies? Are there actually more swifts? Is nature in recovery after years of decline? Or is this shifting baseline syndrome in action, whereby we are so inured to decimated levels of nature that we are deceived by tiny blips of hope? Continue reading...

A new polar project compared samples with those collected more than a century ago by by Scott, along with voyages led by Shackleton and BorchgrevinkThree glass specimen jars full of satsuma-sized sea urchins sit on Dr Hugh Carter's desk in the Natural History Museum. Each one, collected from the depths of the Southern Ocean by polar teams led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, Capt Robert Falcon Scott and the Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink, tells a tale of heroic exploration and scientific endeavour.Now, more than a century later, Carter, the Natural History Museum's (NHM) curator of marine invertebrates, hopes the preserved Antarctic urchins, 50 in all, will help tell a different, increasingly urgent story of modern times: how changes in the world's southernmost waters may be affecting marine life. Continue reading...

Release of 20 lynx over several years into Kielder Forest area would create population of about 50 animalsReleasing just 20 lynx in Northumberland would be enough to create a healthy wild population, research has found, and most people in the area would support the practice.Northumberland Wildlife Trust has been working to see if the wild cats, which became extinct in Britain about 1,300 years ago as a result of hunting and habitat loss, could be returned to the area. Continue reading...

Soundproofing buffers at tunnel mouths to be rolled out on China's latest magnetic levitation train prototypeResearchers hope they may have solved the tunnel boom" problem as they prepare to roll out China's latest prototype magnetic levitation train.The newest version of the maglev train is capable of travelling at 600km/h (about 370mph). However, the train's engineers have wrestled with the problem of the shock waves that occur as the train exits the mouth of a tunnel. Continue reading...

It's not the sisterhood busting your balls, fellas - it's the fossil fuel interests making money from the tonnes of synthetic garbage spewed on to the planet every dayThere is plastic in your balls!Surely this should be headline news every day until the news breaks that there is no longer plastic in your balls", accompanied by photographs of celebration parades and ecstatic couples kissing in the streets. Continue reading...

Advancing blaze scorches 16,000 hectares near Spanish border, destroying homes and forcing people to fleeHundreds of firefighters are battling to stop the spread of a fast-moving wildfire in southern France after one woman died and nine people were injured as the blaze scorched a vast area of the Corbieres hills.The blaze burned an area the size of Paris over one afternoon and night and was still burning on Wednesday evening, making it the second biggest fire in France in 50 years. Continue reading...

Lion that once roamed northern Africa has been extinct in the wild since 1960sFour Barbary lion cubs were born recently in a Czech zoo, a vital contribution for the small surviving population of a rare lion that is extinct in the wild.The three females and one male were seen playing in their outdoor enclosure at Dvr Kralove safari park on Wednesday under the watchful eye of their parents, Khalila and Bart. Continue reading...

Firefighters in southern France are tackling the country's biggest wildfire of the year so far. At least one person has died, with almost a dozen others injured and homes destroyed, according to local authorities.The Aude prefecture said the fire was moving 'very quickly' and that nearly 2,000 firefighters were trying to bring it under control. The blaze has already burned through 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres), the local fire chief Christophe Magny told BFM TV Continue reading...

They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a pointI tried to write a letter recently but my hand didn't quite cooperate: the result was a maniacal scrawl. I rarely put literal pen to paper any more and it seems my overreliance on a keyboard means I may have lost the ability to write legible cursive. I'm not alone: handwriting is disappearing. It's possible my kid will never be taught joined-up writing at school. While typing is more efficient, studies suggest typing notes rather than writing may have a negative impact on the brain's ability to learn.A keyboard feels like stone age technology now; as AI becomes more embedded in our lives, what impact will that have on our brains? We're still figuring that out. The people who make money from the tech keep telling us we need it, or we'll fall behind. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, recently said if you don't wear AI-powered smart glasses, you will find yourself at a significant cognitive disadvantage" in the near future. However, a recent study suggests an overreliance on ChatGPT could harm critical thinking abilities. And then, of course, there's all the other collateral damage of AI - from its massive environmental impact to its exploitation of underpaid creatives' labour. Continue reading...

Researchers found moths and hover flies are more negatively affected by urbanisation than beesGardeners have been urged to work with their neighbours to support moths and hover flies after research found them to be particularly sensitive to urban landscapes.While bees get most of the attention when it comes to supporting pollinators in our cities, researchers found that their less glamorous - but no less important - counterparts from other orders are even more acutely affected by urbanisation. Continue reading...

ASA says online ads from Aira and EDF Energy omitted key facts about eligibility for government grantsTwo more misleading" adverts promoting heat pumps have been banned by the UK's advertising watchdog.A week after the Advertising Standards Authority banned an Octopus Energy ad that claimed consumers could have a heat pump installed for as little as 500, it has taken action against adverts from the home heating supplier Aira and from EDF Energy. Continue reading...

Environment secretary urged to stop drought order that could damage the ecology of River Test in HampshireSouthern Water has applied for a drought order that would allow it to draw larger quantities of water than usual from an internationally prized chalk stream and rare salmon habitat.The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has been urged to intervene and stop the water company from significantly and potentially permanently damaging the river and the ecology within". Continue reading...

Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we've chosen it.This week, from February: across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria.By Tess McClure. Read by Sara LynamThe Oath documentary: www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/jul/30/the-oath-to-be-a-palestinian-doctor-in-israels-healthcare-system Continue reading...

Australia's political landscape is barely recognisable from four years ago. Will Labor abandon its risk-averse past and take an aggressive stance on emissions?

Marine Conservation Society calls for swift action as its litter surveys show some forms of plastic are on the riseVolunteer beach cleaners are finding more vapes than ever before as plastic pollution chokes Britain's coastline.The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) on Wednesday launches its annual beach clean, which last year involved more than 15,000 volunteers who completed more than 1,200 litter surveys. Continue reading...

Delegates at UN treaty talks must not allow negotiations to be derailed again by fossil fuel interestsPlastic pollution has reached the most remote and inaccessible parts of our beleaguered planet. It has been found in Greenland's ice cap, near the summit of Mount Everest, and in the deepest depths of the western Pacific Ocean. Nature programmes have sounded the alarm over a human-made crisis that has become an environmental scourge and a serious threat to our health. Yet global production of plastics is on course to triple to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060, after increasing by more than 200 times over the past 75 years.This gloomy backdrop should inject a sense of urgency into UN-convened talks in Switzerland this week, aimed at agreeing a binding global plastics treaty. In 2022, when 173 countries committed to work towards such an accord, there was widespread relief that at last a multilateral route was to be taken towards solving a quintessentially global problem. Sadly, as delegates gather in Geneva, there are reasons to be fearful.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Large-scale search and rescue operation under way after at least four people killed in Himalayan regionA torrent of mud from a flash flood has smashed into a town in India's Himalayan region, tearing down a mountain valley before demolishing buildings and killing at least four people, with about 100 others missing.Videos broadcast on Indian media showed a terrifying surge of muddy water sweeping away blocks of flats in the tourist region of Dharali in Uttarakhand state. Continue reading...

To develop cold symptoms, you need to be infected by a virus. There's a reason that happens more in winter - and the answer hangs indoors, in the air

The Great Barrier Reef has seen the sharpest annual drop in the amount of live coral recorded by scientists in its northern and southern sections since monitoring started four decades ago, according to a report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The report is the first to comprehensively document the devastating impacts of the early 2024 mass coral bleaching event - the most widespread and severe event on record

Researchers warn reef may reach tipping point where coral cannot recover fast enough between major catastrophic events

Brazilian nightshade and climbing asparagus can be made into biomass pellets, scientists say, presenting an opportunity for an alternative source of energy

Settlement follows another one reached with Ohio in 2023 for similar claims related to forever chemicals'Chemours, DuPont and Corteva have agreed to pay $875m over 25 years to the state of New Jersey to settle environmental claims including pollution linked to Pfas, or forever chemicals", the companies said on Monday.Lawsuits accusing major chemical companies of polluting US drinking water with toxic Pfas chemicals led to more than $11bn in settlements in 2023, with experts predicting that new federal regulations and a growing awareness of the breadth of the contamination will spur more litigation and settlements. Continue reading...

Bad weather hampers search for Alec Luhn after he set out for solo hike in remote Folgefonna national parkRescuers in Norway have continued the search for an award-winning environmental journalist who has gone missing in bad weather during a solo hike in the remote Folgefonna national park, home to one of the country's biggest glaciers.Alec Luhn, a US-born reporter who has worked for the New York Times and the Atlantic, and was a regular Russia correspondent for the Guardian from 2013 to 2017, was reported missing on Monday after he failed to catch a flight to the UK from Bergen. Continue reading...

Coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments sued EPA chief for halting climate justice grantsThe Trump administration's decision to abruptly terminate a $3bn program helping hundreds of communities prepare for climate disasters and environmental hazards is unconstitutional and should be overturned, a court will hear on Tuesday.A coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agency's administrator, Lee Zeldin, for terminating the entire Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) block grant program - despite a legally binding mandate from Congress to fund the Biden-era initiative. Continue reading...

The climate damage done by avoidable flying is huge, yet the government sees more planes as the answer to its economic woesAugust is peak flying time, and airports are on many minds. The government has signalled its support for colossal expansions, whose extra flights would bust its carbon pledges. The excuse is that supertechnology will magic away the extra CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, though it must know that clean, green flying is still futurology. Here's the pity of it: until now this government has rightly boasted of its green credentials, making massive investments in sustainable energy and retro-insulating cold homes. Expanding air travel is not on any green agenda.Heathrow has just submitted proposals for a 50bn third runway, as approved by Labour in 2009 and the Tories who voted it through parliament in 2018. Covid applied the brakes but now Heathrow is back with gold-plated, shovel-ready" plans. Its owners, including Qatar, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, expect the planning bill to prevent newts or judicial reviews blocking the runway. Their pitch to an investment-hungry government is that expanding Europe's busiest airport would create 100,000 new jobs, propelling growth with 750 extra daily flights. Continue reading...

Azita Gandjei's mesmerising black and white photos capture the point at which the boundaries between people and nature dissolve Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: Inside a critical summit of 179 countries at the UN in Geneva to secure a treaty that will combat plastic pollutionGood morning. Not only does plastic waste clog up waterways, beaches and strangle sea life, it also causes havoc inside the human body. Tiny fragments - invisible to the human eye - are probably swimming around your lungs, blood and liver right now.This represents a growing and underrecognised danger" to human health, the latest report in the Lancet warns, as 10 days of tense talks kick off in Geneva today, with 179 countries due to hash out a kind of Paris agreement for plastic pollution".Weather | Gusts of more than 100mph from Storm Floris have brought travel disruption, power cuts and the widespread cancellation of events across large parts of the UK. Disruption to the rail network in Scotland is expected until around 4pm on Tuesday, ScotRail has said.UK news | A member of the House of Lords urged ministers to crack down on Palestine Action at the request of a US defence company that employs him as an adviser. Police are planning to arrest anyone demonstrating in support of Palestine Action this weekend.Politics | The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, is not telling the truth about the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government", the former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss has said.Tommy Robinson | The far-right activist known as Tommy Robinson has been arrested by British police on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after a man was allegedly assaulted at a London railway station.Gaza | More than 100 critically ill and injured children in Gaza hope to come to the UK as soon as possible after the government announced a scheme to provide those in severe need with NHS care. Continue reading...