Environment | The Guardian

Exclusive: Glenn Platt says opposition leader's lazy' response to report undermines science

Friends of the Earth calls on government to rein in growth of datacentres for fear they could increase fossil fuel useIreland has allowed itself to become a data dumping ground" for big technology companies such as Amazon and Meta which are monopolising clean energy generation for their datacentres, campaigners claim.They say the growth of the cloud storage sector in Ireland is so rapid it is threatening the country's legally binding decarbonisation commitments. Continue reading...

Backers of blocked Utah railway proposal want justices to narrow scope of 50-year-old environmental legislationThe future of environmental safeguards protecting communities, wildlife and waterways from harm will be considered by the US supreme court on Tuesday, in a case about a proposed oil train that threatens to upend five decades of legal precedent.The case brought by Utah's Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and Uinta Basin Railway LLC is asking the supreme court to overturn a federal appeals court decision blocking the approval of an 88-mile railway through the Uinta Basin in north-eastern Utah. The railway's backers want the court to narrow the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) - the country's landmark environmental legislation passed by Congress and signed by Richard Nixon in 1970. Continue reading...

Government should point to evidence of FSA licensing of additive, says chair of environment and climate change committeeThe government must urgently reassure consumers that feed additives given to cattle to reduce methane emissions are harmless, and a vital tool in tackling the climate crisis, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee has warned.Lady Sheehan, chair of the environment and climate change committee of the House of Lords, called on ministers to step up as a row has blown up over the prospective use of the additive Bovaer in British dairy herds supplying Arla, the dairy company. Continue reading...

European Commission scientific advisers say technology to offset global heating could wreak havoc on weatherEurope should ban space mirrors, cloud whitening and other untested tools being touted to reflect the sun's rays, the European Commission's scientific advisers have warned, but said the door should be left open for research into their development.The scientists said the risks and benefits of solar radiation modification (SRM) - also known as solar geoengineering - were highly uncertain". They called for an EU-wide moratorium on using it as a way to offset global heating. Continue reading...

Energy company's deal with Japan's Jera will allow it to focus on exploiting oil and gas assets

Conservation groups join those who helped plant woodland in opposing expansion of bottling plantHarrogate Spring Water, which is owned by the multinational Danone, is planning to cut down a wood planted by schoolchildren in order to expand its bottling factory in the North Yorkshire town.Two primary schools, along with other local volunteers, helped to plant 450 trees in a project aimed at fighting climate breakdown organised by the Rotary Club of Harrogate almost 20 years ago. Continue reading...

An area nearly a third larger than India turned permanently arid in past three decades, research showsAn area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland - arid areas where agriculture is difficult - in the past three decades, research has found.Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world's land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according to the study by the UN Science Policy Interface, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations. Continue reading...

For every 1 spent on renewable energy projects, only 25p was invested in connecting them to grid, report findsThe UK is lagging behind in the race to rewire the world's power grids by investing four times more on renewable energy projects than on the electricity cables needed to connect them to the grid and consumers, according to a new report.For every pound the UK has spent on renewables it has spent only 25p on the cables and power lines, claims the report by Bloomberg NEF, which placed the UK eighth in an index of the world's 10 biggest energy markets. Continue reading...

Social media sites have become crucial tools for the sale of endangered species and platforms should do more to combat it, say expertsWhen the baby parrots were delivered to Alice Soares de Oliveira's desk they had no feathers and could barely open their eyes. Housed in a dirty cardboard box, the pair were barely a month old, and showed signs of underfeeding.The parrots - along with a pair of young toucans that arrived just under a month later - were victims of wildlife traffickers. Snatched by poachers, perhaps from their mother's nest, they were all advertised for sale on social media. Continue reading...

Average global temperature in November was 1.62C above preindustrial levels, bringing average for the year to 1.60CThis year is now almost certain to be the hottest year on record, data shows. It will also be the first to have an average temperature of more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels, marking a further escalation of the climate crisis.Data for November from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found the average global surface temperature for the month was 1.62C above the level before the mass burning of fossil fuels drove up global heating. With data for 11 months of 2024 now available, scientists said the average for the year is expected to be 1.60C, exceeding the record set in 2023 of 1.48C. Continue reading...

Drivers killed when vehicles were hit by falling trees, while quarter of a million people had power cut

National science agency dismisses argument nuclear's economics have not been adequately considered in new draft report

Male players must step up and add their voice to the campaign to stop our sport being sold out to the big polluters causing climate changeAt the Cop29 climate conference last month Sofie Junge Pedersen and Katie Rood again called for Fifa to drop its sponsorship deal with the Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco. They were among more than 130 female players who signed an open letter in October that described the partnership as a middle finger to women's football" that will do real damage to people and our planet.After the letter was published, I spoke out in support of their initiative. I hoped other professional male players would join me. The women were widely applauded for speaking out but their male counterparts have not followed suit. On Wednesday, Fifa is poised to confirm Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 men's World Cup. Continue reading...

PM vows to overrule local authority heads who resist housing revolution amid concerns from wildlife groups and Labour-run administrations On wokeness, patriotism and change, Kamala Harris's defeat has lessons for StarmerKeir Starmer has warned local leaders that he will not hesitate to overrule them if they attempt to dodge their responsibilities" in approving new homes, amid growing concerns among wildlife groups and councils over his plans for a housing revolution.The prime minister has placed a pledge to build 1.5m new homes in England by the next election at the heart of his government's plans. Continue reading...

Hot, dry conditions bring numerous species into contact with people and pets, and not just in the bush. It's good to know which is which

Plans of deportation and trade wars should concern farmers, yet they backed him by a three-to-one marginEvery year, farmers in California's Central valley heavily rely on the labor of hundreds of thousands of immigrant agricultural workers to grow and harvest their crops.But for many in a region that produces one-quarter of the country's food, president-elect Donald Trump's promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants - a move that could result in national agricultural output falling by up to $60bn - is not a threat to their livelihoods. Continue reading...

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

New research estimates a 32% increase in deaths of people under 35 if greenhouse gases not radically cutExtreme heat fueled by the climate crisis is often viewed as primarily a problem for vulnerable segments of the population, such as elderly people. But it is people aged under 35 that are set to suffer the brunt of heat-related deaths as temperatures climb, new research has suggested.While older people are susceptible to heatwaves, they currently make up the bulk of cold-related deaths. As the world heats up, it will be younger people that will suffer disproportionately as the mortality burden shifts, with the new study estimating a 32% increase in deaths of people under 35 years old this century from heat if greenhouse gases emissions aren't radically cut. Continue reading...

Former and current NFL and WNBA stars are ushering in a wave of athlete-farmers who see farming as a greater missionWhen Jason Brown speaks to schoolchildren, they clamor to hear about his seven-year NFL career. A mountain of a man who stood six-three and weighed 330lbs in his prime, he excelled at center - gridiron speak for the innermost lineman who initiates offensive plays by snapping" the ball between his legs to the quarterback.Brown entered the draft in 2005 after standout years at the University of North Carolina. He quickly gained a reputation for being a human plow who relentlessly cleared pathways for some of the game's best. He got paid well for it, signing a $20m free-agent contract with the St Louis Rams in 2009. At 26, he was the position's highest paid player in the league, and he bought the toys to show it: the MTV Cribs-style house, the flashy cars to match. Continue reading...

Here are some of the standout images from the 2024 Nature Conservancy Oceania photo contest.The 2024 contest saw close to 2,000 entries from photographers in Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea

High voltage required to use Aemo's emergency backstop is a bit like stopping a car by driving into a tree, Vince Garrone says

Campaigners want rethink of national policy because of wasteful knock-it-down-and-start-again approach'Campaigners are calling for planning rules to consider the environmental implications of knocking down buildings after a controversial redevelopment of Marks & Spencer's historic store on London's Oxford Street was given the green light by the government.Save Britain's Heritage said national policy should consider the embedded carbon linked to a site when considering its future and prioritise reuse of historic buildings amid the climate crisis alongside issues such as preserving important architecture. Continue reading...

The overwhelming majority of Europeans support climate action, but they must be compensated for its costs in tangible waysThis year was not an easy time to be Green. Green parties took a beating in June's European elections, with their seat count plummeting from 71 to 53. In national elections they haven't fared much better. The Green party was nearly wiped out in last week's general election in Ireland, losing all but one of its seats after having been part of a coalition government.At the same time, climate-sceptic parties framing environmental policies as elitist and unfair have surged across the continent. In Germany, for instance, the far-right AfD owes some of its electoral success to its rallying cry against an emerging eco-dictatorship".Bjorn Bremer is an assistant professor of political science at Central European University and a John F Kennedy Memorial fellow at Harvard University. Jane Gingrich is a professor of social policy at the University of Oxford. Hanna Schwander is a professor of political sociology and social policy at the Humboldt University of Berlin. They are all co-conveners of the Progressive Politics Research Network, whose findings are published here Continue reading...

The forests are home to eagles, smelly lichen and fungus that looks like intestines, say conservationists battling to save themBritain's rare rainforests are home to wildlife from eagles to the world's largest slugs and lichen that looks like dragon skin, say conservationists battling to save them.The Woodland Trust has unveiled a list of 11 weird and wonderful" species that make their home in and around temperate rainforests found in the south-west and north-west of England, Wales and Scotland. Continue reading...

Couple discovered animal in their driveway in northern Ontario, where climate crisis can change bear behaviourA man who leapt on" a polar bear to protect his wife in a northern First Nations community in Canada is expected to fully recover from the severe injuries he sustained in the attack.But experts caution that changing environmental conditions will lead to a shift in where and when polar bears are spotted, increasing the risk of surprise encounters. Continue reading...

Some media outlets are already offering forecasts nearly three weeks out - but the BoM advises people to check in on 18 December

Tight correlation' between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from climate crisis, experts sayConcern over the climate crisis may evaporate in the White House from January, but its financial costs are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums - with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all.A mounting toll of severe hurricanes, floods, fires and other extreme events has caused average premiums to leap since 2020, with parts of the US most prone to disasters bearing the brunt. A climate crisis is starting to stir an insurance crisis. Continue reading...

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New liquefied natural gas projects could produce 10 gigatonnes of emissions by the end of the decade, close to the annual emissions of all coal plantsA $200bn wave of new gas projects could lead to a climate bomb" equivalent to releasing the annual emissions of all the world's operating coal power plants, according to a report.Large banks have invested $213bn into plans to build terminals that export and import gas that is chilled and shipped on ocean tankers. But a report has warned that they could be more damaging than coal power. Continue reading...

US says current climate rules are satisfactory, prompting condemnation from activists and vulnerable countriesClimate justice campaigners have condemned the US after the world's largest historic greenhouse gas emitter argued against countries being legally obliged to combat the climate crisis.The US intervention came on Wednesday as part of the historic climate hearing at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where island nations and other climate-vulnerable countries are calling for wealthy polluting nations most responsible for climate breakdown to be held legally responsible. Continue reading...

Mary Lawlor criticizes US's failure to respond to concerns after Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal chargesA leading UN human rights expert has expressed dismay after the US government failed to respond to questions about the criminal crackdown on peaceful climate protesters.Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, on Tuesday published a letter sent to US authorities raising concerns about the potential violation of international human rights law after two climate activists, Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal, were charged with crimes that carried lengthy jail terms. Continue reading...

Native leaders ready for a fight as Trump calls ANWR, one of the last truly wild places on Earth, the US's biggest oil farm'The Arctic national wildlife refuge (ANWR) is one of the earth's last intact ecosystems. Vast and little-known, this 19m-acre expanse along Alaska's north slope is home to some of the region's last remaining polar bears, as well as musk oxen, wolves and wolverines. Millions of birds from around the world migrate to or through the region each year, and it serves as the calving grounds for the porcupine caribou.Donald Trump has called the refuge the US's biggest oil farm". Continue reading...

Testing found acute lead toxicosis as cause of death of two lorikeets, a honeyeater and three grey-headed flying foxes in Port Pirie

Exclusive: With Brazil's politicians, agribusiness organisations and global traders piling on the pressure, the highly successful 2006 Soy Moratorium is under threatOne of the cornerstones of Amazon rainforest protection - the Soy Moratorium - is under unprecedented pressure from Brazilian agribusiness organisations, politicians, and global trading companies, the Guardian has learned.Soy is one of the most widely grown crops in Brazil, and posed a huge deforestation threat to the Amazon rainforest until stakeholders voluntarily agreed to impose a moratorium and no longer source it from the region in 2006. Continue reading...

The sprawling Florida mansion sits in one of the most vulnerable places in the US to climate-driven disastersA sprawling Florida mansion set beside a powdery white sand beach overlooking the azure Gulf of Mexico is currently the most expensive property listed for sale in the United States, yours for a mere $295m.It is also in one of the most vulnerable places in the country to climate-driven disasters, and faces an almost inevitable flooding event in the coming years. Continue reading...

The Baku Cop29 talks were marked by division and self-interest, with rancorous meddling right until the end

Survey finds 25 percentage point gender gap across all age brackets on whether nuclear power would be positive for the country, with majority of men saying it would

As ICJ hears landmark climate case, Grenada's PM says vulnerable nations expect a long, hard fight for aidIt's a macabre picture: tombs, headstones and wreaths, lovingly selected by family members, floating into the oblivion of the ocean, and with them the remains of loved ones uprooted from their final resting place. Some are dragged back to land, washed up on beaches on the Grenadian island of Carriacou, transforming the beautiful Caribbean shoreline into a chaotic graveyard.This disturbing reality, says Grenada's prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, is a poignant example of the gravity of the climate crisis and its impact on his country. Continue reading...

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Recordings by biologist Heike Vester reveal how oil and gas exploration as well as cruises, fishing boats and even whale-watchers are adding to the din underwaterFrom the moment that the biologist Dr Heike Vester presses play, the sound of the static of the fjord fills the room. First comes the constant, steady rumbling of a boat engine. Then, every eight seconds, like a foreboding bass drum, comes the explosion of seismic airguns - extremely loud blasts used in oil and gas exploration that can travel vast distances underwater.And finally, dancing above it all - and at times drowned out by it - are the soaring vocalisations of whales.Heike Vester at home in Bodo, Norway. Her love of whales comes partly from her interest in matrilineal societies. Photograph: Marthe Molstre/The Guardian Continue reading...

Fossil fuel giant's lawyer says the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility is ignoring years of work by Santos

Vanuatu leads the charge of several nations arguing developed nations have a legal responsibility beyond UN commitments

At least one of the marine mammals was recently spotted in Washington wearing the multipurpose fishy accessoryResearchers suspect that orcas may be reviving a peculiar fashion statement of sorts not seen since the 1980s.Scientists in Washington state have observed at least one orca balancing salmon on its head, a trend known as the dead salmon hat". They spotted the stylish killer whale this autumn in Puget Sound. Continue reading...

New GCSE was announced under previous government in 2022 but now sitting in limbo', says Mary Colwell, one of its architectsThe natural history GCSE has been shelved because it is seen as a Conservative party initiative", one of the architects of the proposed new qualification has said.The conservationist and campaigner Mary Colwell told the Guardian she was hugely frustrated" with the halt to the proposed new GCSE, which had been announced in 2022 and was supposed to be taught in schools by 2025. Continue reading...

Paul Watson, an early Greenpeace member, says his imprisonment in Greenland is a political case'The anti-whaling activist Paul Watson will learn within 14 days whether he will be extradited to Japan, a court has been told, as his four-month imprisonment in Greenland was extended.At a hearing in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous territory of Denmark, the judge Lars-Christian Sinkbaek said that Watson, who turned 74 on Monday, would continue to be detained in a high security prison pending a decision from the Danish government. Watson's legal team immediately submitted an appeal to Greenland's high court. Continue reading...

Readers led to believe a short-on-facts advertorial exhorting government to let companies extract more gas is straight news coverage

Organisation asked supporters if they want to feel different on our election night' in an ad with half of Trump's face and half of Dutton's

The word probably' will haunt this fish for the rest of its days - a deflating description for a cute, toxic creaturePufferfish are cute, and most pufferfish are toxic. Like people, they spend their weeks moving between states of puffed up and deflated. Or, really, three states: normal, puffed up and then the hangover after the puffing up. Ironically, the pufferfish toxin, called tetrodotoxin, is deadly because it stops a person's diaphragm from moving - in other words, it stops you from being able to puff yourself up. And you could see that as a lesson for wanting to eat them in the first place.You're wondering what is inside a blown-up pufferfish, how they inflate. Firstly: it is not air, or else they would pop up and out of the water like a balloon in a swimming pool. Also, air is hard to come by down there. They turn themselves into absurd-looking spherical objects by sucking water - something called, grossly, buccal pumping" - into their extremely elastic stomachs. They don't have ribs, which helps. This gives predators a fright - but perhaps more to the point, large spheres are hard to swallow. Continue reading...

Researchers at ANU found no real difference between the climate opinions of regional and urban Australians. Remember that as we head into the next federal election, with renewable energy on the frontline