Environment | The Guardian

Group of 40 organisations says deregulation risks irreparable damage to environment, people’s health and workers’ rightsDitching the UK’s green and social regulations in the bonfire of red tape that both Tory leadership candidates have promised would risk irreparable damage to the natural environment, to people’s health and workers’ rights, a group of 40 organisations has warned.Health and safety in the workplace could also be threatened if current regulations are abandoned, according to the group. Both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, one of whom will be the next prime minister after a poll of Conservative party members, have indicated they would lead a deregulation drive in government. Continue reading...

Energy bills are set to top £3,500 a year for the average household, while voices on the right of the Tory party want to bury the ‘green agenda’The fourth Conservative prime minister in six years will take office next week, facing a set of inflationary economic and social crises not seen since the 1970s.Energy bills set to top £3,500 a year for the average household are forecast to push two-thirds into fuel poverty by January, while food prices have leapt at the fastest rate for more than a decade, adding nearly £500 and rising to the average annual grocery bill. Key workers are striking or mulling stoppages, and services from health to the courts are on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, sewage is pouring into our rivers and beaches, a grim metaphor for the state of the nation taking tangible form. Continue reading...

Sharif’s climate change minister called the flooding a ‘climate catastrophe’ and said the south Asian nation was ‘paying the price’ for western use of fossil fuelsPakistan is not to blame for a climate crisis-fuelled disaster that has flooded much of the country, the prime minister has said, as he made a desperate plea for international help in what he said was the “toughest moment” in the nation’s history.“We are suffering from it but it is not our fault at all,” Shehbaz Sharif told journalists on Tuesday afternoon at a press conference where his climate change minister referred to the flooding as a “climate catastrophe”. Continue reading...

Charity says strategy is unlawful and will allow storm overflows to dump raw sewage for next 28 yearsThe UK government’s plan to cut millions of hours of raw sewage discharges by water companies each year is facing a judicial review on the grounds that it is unlawful.The conservationist charity WildFish is calling for the storm overflow reduction strategy, published on Friday, to be withdrawn immediately. Continue reading...

We have become used to thinking about things from a driver’s perspective – but is that the sort of world we want?When we block traffic from a street, like for a sports event or a street party, we say that the street is “closed”. But who is it closed for? For motorists. But really, that street is now open to people.We say this because we’ve become accustomed to thinking about the street in “traffic logic”. For centuries, streets used to be a place with a multiplicity of purposes: talk, trade, play, work and moving around. It’s only in the past century that it has become a space for traffic to drive through as quickly and efficiently as possible. This idea is so pervasive that it has colonised our thinking.This is an edited extract from Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives by Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet, translated by Fiona Graham Continue reading...

Beaches closed after male surfer was bitten by great white shark on Wednesday morning with a drone deployed to search for the animal

Open letter from 44 Anglican leaders contrasts ‘generous’ British response to Ukraine with ‘dire need’ still unmet in their countriesDozens of bishops from drought-ravaged east Africa have appealed to the UK government to urgently get more funding to those in need, warning that Britain’s rapid response to the Ukraine crisis must not come at the expense of lives elsewhere.As the worst drought for four decades tightens its grip on Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, with millions facing acute hunger, the group of 44 Anglican bishops criticised the international community for not paying attention to early warnings or backing up rhetoric with sufficient funds. Continue reading...

His warnings of ecological and social breakdown have proved accurate. But with months to live, Davis is anything but defeatedFor decades, the southern California writer Mike Davis has obsessively documented the dark side of the Golden state - its wildfires, earthquakes, megalomaniac real estate developers and violent police departments.In essays like The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, Davis has argued that California’s natural disasters are not really natural at all, but the result of greed, racism, and lack of foresight from the region’s power brokers. In City of Quartz – published in 1990, two years before the Rodney King uprising – he depicted Los Angeles as a white supremacist police state that had successfully marketed itself as paradise. Continue reading...

Prehistoric stone circle and 11th-century church uncovered as country’s reservoirs hit 36% of normal capacityA huge megalithic complex and a centuries-old church are among the underwater monuments to have resurfaced in Spain as a severe drought causes water levels to plunge.After a prolonged dry spell, Spain’s reservoirs – which supply water for cities and farms – are at just under 36% capacity, according to environment ministry figures for August. Continue reading...

Australian Energy Market Operator warns that without investment in new-generation electricity storage and transmission, demand will outstrip supply

Minister says debt is high quality and shows farmers are ‘investing’, but academic believes there are ‘real and unrealised problems’

Forest fires, droughts and heatwaves across the country is forcing provinces to reduce power consumptionThere were still some streetlights on the Bund, one of the main roads in central Shanghai. But the decorative lights which light up the city skyline – blue, pink, and red – were turned off for two days to cope with the peaking power demand.The power restriction imposed by the city authorities, was the first in Shanghai, the financial hub of China. But across the rest of the country similar restrictions have been put in place, as cities, notably in the south-western region, grapple with ongoing power shortages caused by devastating droughts this summer. Continue reading...

Environmentalists say replacing natural forests with wood plantations to realise shift in construction practices is ‘bonkers’Building new urban homes from wood instead of concrete and steel could save about 10% of the carbon budget needed to limit global heating to 2C this century, according to a new study.The overhaul of construction practices needed for such a shift would require up to 149m hectares of new timber plantations – and an increase in harvests from unprotected natural forests – but it need not encroach on farmland, according to the paper by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Continue reading...

Gathering of as many as 100 boats in protected Mar Menor may have broken environmental lawsSpain’s ecology ministry and wildlife police are investigating whether a “mega party” and concert involving dozens of boats held this month in one of Europe’s largest and most endangered saltwater lagoons broke environmental laws.Photos emerged of as many as 100 boats moored off the Isla del Ciervo in the Mar Menor, in the south-eastern region of Murcia. Continue reading...

Canada warns of ‘significant’ economic damage in the event of a shutdown of Line 5, which travels through MichiganCanada has once again invoked a longstanding treaty with the US as it seeks to keep a controversial cross-border pipeline open, warning of “significant” economic damage to both countries in the event of a shutdown.Canada’s foreign minister said Line 5, a pipeline operated by Calgary-based Enbridge, was a critical source of energy security. Continue reading...

Mississippi capital says complications with water linked to recent flooding, leading to emergency distribution of bottled waterMississippi’s capital, Jackson, will go without reliable drinking water indefinitely, officials said, after pumps at the main water treatment plant failed on Monday, leading to the emergency distribution of bottled water and tanker trucks for 180,000 people.The city linked the failure to complications from the flooding of the Pearl River, but Mississippi’s governor, Tate Reeves, who declared a state of emergency, said the cause was unknown and that the city-run water treatment plant had been poorly operated and understaffed for years. Continue reading...

A fifth of the 52m tickets sold were bought by people who did not ordinarily use public transportGermany’s three-month experiment with €9 tickets for a month’s unlimited travel on regional train networks, trams and buses saved about 1.8m tons of CO emissions, it has been claimed.Since its introduction on 1 June to cut fuel consumption and relieve a cost of living crisis, about 52m tickets have been sold, a fifth of these to people who did not ordinarily use public transport. The scheme is due to end on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Aloha Petroleum’s case against AIG could set precedent as to whether firms are protected against climate damage claimsA fossil fuel firm is suing its insurer for refusing to cover a climate lawsuit in a case that could affect the wider industry’s ability to defend itself from litigation.Aloha Petroleum, a subsidiary of the US-based Sunoco, filed a claim against AIG’s National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh earlier this month, arguing it had failed to protect Aloha from the mounting costs of defending climate-related claims by local governments in Hawaii. Continue reading...

Announcement means 11 of agency’s 14 areas in England now in drought status after record dry spellAll of south-west England is in drought after some of the driest conditions in nearly 90 years, the Environment Agency has said.The Wessex area – which includes Bristol, Somerset, Dorset, south Gloucestershire and parts of Wiltshire – has been declared in drought status. Continue reading...

Call for emergency funding as nearly half a million people displaced and estimated $10bn damage to economyThe United Nations and Pakistan are to appeal for $160m (£135m) in emergency funding for the nearly half a million people displaced by record-breaking floods that have killed more than 1,150 people since mid-June.Large areas remain underwater and more than 33 million people, or one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the floods. Rescuers have been evacuating stranded people to safer ground. Continue reading...

Billionaire becomes first Asian person to break into the top three of world’s wealthyThe Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has been named the world’s third richest person with an estimated $137bn (£117bn) fortune and becomes the first Asian person to break into the top three of world’s wealthy.Adani, 60, who founded the mining-to-energy conglomerate Adani Group after dropping out of university, was on Tuesday ranked third on the daily-updated Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Continue reading...

Solar and wind projects to expand in size and provide bulk of total American electricity supply by decade’s end, study showsRenewable energy is set for an unprecedented boom in the US in the wake of its first ever climate bill, with the capacity of solar and wind projects expected to double by the end of the decade and providing the bulk of total American electricity supply, new analysis has shown.The passage of the legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will help propel the US towards the forefront of the clean energy economy, experts predict, helping it compete with China on the manufacturing and installation of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and emerging zero carbon technology. Continue reading...

Tory leadership candidate criticised by campaigners after reports her team have met energy firms

Despite many challenges, December’s crucial biodiversity talks in Montreal may set a new path for humans to live with nature

Conservationists say auditor general’s report shows offsets must be ‘last resort’ amid calls for overhaul of biodiversity market

Senator David Pocock and Bob Carr among those urging Albanese government to claw back massive mining profits

Weather agencies warn of flooding as analyst warns a winter energy crunch is ‘highly likely’Rain across central China this week is expected to relieve the country’s worst heatwave on record, but weather agencies are now warning of potential floods, while analysts say the energy crisis exacerbated by the months-long drought is not over.Almost half of China has been affected by the latest heatwave, the hottest since record-keeping began in 1961. Hundreds of temperature records have been broken, and the heat has exacerbated the effects of low rainfall, drying up rivers and reservoirs across the country. Continue reading...

Watchdog due to arrive in Kyiv as frequent attacks on Russian-occupied power station raise fears mission may be called off

Outgoing PM to warn against focusing on short-term energy solutions in one of his final speechesLeading green Conservatives have backed Boris Johnson’s call for his successor to invest in renewable energy, amid concern that the Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss could rely more on fossil fuels to combat soaring prices.In one of his final speeches as prime minister, Johnson is set to warn against focusing on short-term solutions and neglecting both renewables and a wider shift towards net zero. Continue reading...

Loss will contribute a minimum rise of 27cm regardless of what climate action is taken, scientists discoverMajor sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to end overnight.The research shows the global heating to date will cause an absolute minimum sea-level rise of 27cm (10.6in) from Greenland alone as 110tn tonnes of ice melt. With continued carbon emissions, the melting of other ice caps and thermal expansion of the ocean, a multi-metre sea-level rise appears likely. Continue reading...

Northern Irish painter Jack Coulter used the climate activist’s words and music by the 1975 to create the pieceWhen Greta Thunberg delivered her “Our house is on fire” speech at Davos in 2019, she galvanised hundreds of thousands of school students to strike for the climate. The address was unique and potent in its urgency, but what did it look like in colour? What hues, textures and shapes could be ascribed to her words?One artist has sought to answer that very question, by transcribing Thunberg’s voice into a painting that will debut at Sotheby’s next month. Continue reading...

Foreign minister urges countries and IMF to help stricken country after climate change minister speaks of climate ‘catastrophe’Pakistan’s government has appealed for international help to tackle a flooding emergency that has killed more than 1,000 people and threatens to leave a third of the country – an area roughly the size of Britain – underwater.Foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said on Sunday night that floods brought on by weeks of extreme monsoonal rainfall and melting glaciers would worsen Pakistan’s already dire economic situation and that financial aid was needed. Continue reading...

Lack of activity has confounded forecasts so far but a cluster of thunderstorms could change thatThe Atlantic hurricane season has so far confounded forecasts of an active year, with only three named storms so far, none of which were hurricane strength. In fact, until now this August joins 1997 and 1961 in having no named storms.However, there are three months left of the season and activity is starting to stir in the tropics. A cluster of thunderstorms in the central Atlantic has the potential to organise sufficiently to become the first named storm since Colin in early July. Should this occur, it may move westwards and approach the Leeward Islands, bringing the threat of heavy rainfall towards the end of this week, but there is little suggestion it will develop into a significant storm at this stage. Continue reading...

EA ‘shutting down’ calls from public about rivers, says former worker Helen Nightingale, leading waterways to deteriorateEngland’s rivers will continue to deteriorate unless the Environment Agency stops “shutting down” the public’s calls about pollution, according to an ex-employee who worked at the agency for three decades.Officers are told to ignore calls from the public and told not to look at possible incidents if the caller thinks they are lower impact, meaning they fall into so-called category 3 or 4. This has left staff “demoralised” says Helen Nightingale, a catchment planner in north-west Lancashire who left the Environment Agency in April. Continue reading...

Government plan to cut agriculture emissions by 25% by 2030 will drive many farms into bankruptcy, say criticsDonald Scully gazes at his herd of 208 cows munching grass and clover in a verdant field, as a light breeze ruffles the stillness.“There is an enjoyment for me to come out and look and see how healthy and happy these cows are,” says Scully, 47, a third-generation dairy farmer. “Every single cow has her own personality, they’re all individuals.” Continue reading...

Renovations valued at more than $50,000 will be subject to the new NSW government planning policy

The release of vast new areas along the Australian coast for oil and gas exploration is undermining proclamations about creating a cleaner economy

Penny Allman-Payne says body would combat climate scare campaigns by giving workers a secure future

Under deal, German owner of Nottinghamshire station would be paid a fee to pause decommissioningThe effort to prevent electricity blackouts this winter is expected to delay the closure of part of a coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire, with the plant’s German owner nearing agreement with the UK authorities.In the third in a series of deals to have more coal power on standby if needed, National Grid’s electricity system operator (NGESO) is working towards finalising an agreement with Uniper to keep all of the operations at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar site open through the winter. Continue reading...

Conservationists and smaller fishers say expansion scheme is ‘good for the big boys’ but will not benefit Devon portA scheme to double the size of England’s most lucrative fish market and provide more room for “industrial” trawlers using levelling up funds has been condemned by green campaigners, smaller-scale fishers and leisure boat enthusiasts.Critics claim the plans for the Devon harbour town of Brixham, which is expected to land a record-breaking £50m worth of fish this year, will lead to more environmentally damaging fishing practices, increase lorry movements and benefit a few powerful businesses rather than improving the town as a whole. Continue reading...

Environment Agency chief calls for new attitudes to conserve water and avoid droughtsBritish people need to be “less squeamish” about drinking water derived from sewage, the boss of the Environment Agency has said.Writing in the Sunday Times, Sir James Bevan outlined measures the government, water companies and ordinary people should be taking to avoid severe droughts. Continue reading...

Flash flooding from ‘monster monsoon’ washes away villages and crops and leaves thousands homelessA Pakistani minister has called the country’s deadly monsoon season “a serious climate catastrophe” and “a climate dystopia at our doorstep” as officials said deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan had passed 1,000 since mid-June.Flash floods, which have intensified in recent days, have swept away villages, roads, bridges, people, livestock and crops across all four provinces. Pakistan has appealed for international help as soldiers and rescue workers have evacuated stranded people to relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced people. Continue reading...

Environmentalists are measuring the impact of Russian military’s devastation and hope to force Moscow into making reparations

Governments urged to plan for emerging technologies that will allow bidirectional charging so vehicle batteries can power homes

Landowner and bird experts cast doubt on Queensland government’s rat poison theory

If foreign secretary wins the Tory leadership contest she looks set to have to change course on ‘handouts’ despite campaign pledgesFor months, everyone in government had known that Friday was energy cap day, and at 7am the bad news duly dropped. Phones pinged as the nation woke to Ofgem’s confirmation that typical gas and electricity bills were to rise by a frightening 80%.Millions of people would be unable to cope, said charities. Even those on low or middle earnings who had some savings could see them entirely wiped out. It was a full-on national crisis, albeit long predicted. Continue reading...

This fifth round of discussions was meant to establish a UN Ocean Treaty that would protect biodiversity in international watersThe latest round of talks at the United Nations aimed at securing protections for marine life in international waters that cover half the planet ended without agreement Saturday.The fifth round of discussions, which began two weeks ago, were designed to establish a UN Ocean Treaty that would set rules for protecting biodiversity in two-thirds of the world’s oceanic areas that lie outside territorial waters. Continue reading...

Agricultural waste outstrips sewage as the main danger – and activists blame the ex-environment secretary’s cuts to farm inspectionsLiz Truss is responsible for farmers being allowed to dump a catastrophic “chemical cocktail” of pollutants into Britain’s rivers, according to environmental campaigners.This has meant agricultural waste now outstrips sewage as the leading danger to England’s waterways. Continue reading...

Sale of peat-based compost for use on private gardens and allotments to be outlawed within 18 monthsSales of peat for use on private gardens and allotments will be banned in England from 2024, the government has announced.Environmental campaigners have long called for stricter laws to restore peatlands. Continue reading...

After begging the industry to increase supply, the White House used its reserve to strategically set fuel pricesCan Joe Biden push big oil to drill for more oil, lower gas prices and speed up the switch to electric vehicles? That’s the ambitious aim of a plan the Biden administration is implementing as drivers continue to wrestle with soaring gas prices. Unusually, the plan has support not just from the oil industry but some economists and environmentalists.As 2022’s gas prices set off inflation and oil companies celebrated record profits, Biden practically begged industry executives to take a basic step that could have brought down costs: pump more oil to increase supply. His pleas fell on deaf ears. Continue reading...