Environment | The Guardian

The government’s approval will open the market for a food praised for being more efficient and environmentally-friendlyThe US government has cleared the way for Americans to be able to eat lab-grown meat, after authorities deemed a meat product derived from animal cells to be safe for human consumption.The US food and drug administration (FDA) will allow a California company called Upside Foods to take living cells from chickens and then grow them in a controlled laboratory environment to produce a meat product that doesn’t involve the actual slaughter of any animals. Continue reading...

The New York cook behind Budget Eats is a master of kitchen improvisation. She takes the Guardian food shopping

Weary NSW residents have been warned to expect disaster to continue into the new year with more rain forecast

Community members and campaigners have hailed the move as a win for vulnerable marine ecosystem and wildlifeCanada has rejected a mine expansion project in the Arctic after years of uncertainty and fierce protest, in what community members and campaigners say is a win for the vulnerable marine ecosystem and wildlife.Baffinland Iron Mines’ planned expansion to its Mary River site would have seen it double output to 12m tonnes of iron ore. To bring the ore to market, the mine also said it needed to build a 110km railway to a port near the community of Pond Inlet as well as doubling its shipping. Continue reading...

Four dams on California-Oregon border to be decommissioned on Klamath River, which fish use to reach spawning groundsA US agency seeking to restore habitat for endangered fish gave final approval on Thursday to decommission four dams straddling the California-Oregon border, the largest dam removal undertaking in US history.Dam removal is expected to improve the health of the Klamath River, the route that Chinook salmon and endangered coho salmon take from the Pacific Ocean to their upstream spawning grounds, and from where the young fish return to the sea. Continue reading...

The most significant step came in last year’s Glasgow Cop26 when countries reached a pained consensus supporting a ‘phase down’ of coal powerYou could be forgiven for thinking getting rid of fossil fuels might be the easy point of agreement at a global summit to address the climate crisis. But you would be wrong. Instead, the issue has become a major point of contention as the Cop27 conference in Egypt staggers into its final stage.Despite vast amounts of evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there has never been formal agreement at climate talks that the world should reduce fossil fuel use. The most significant step in that direction came in last year’s Glasgow pact, which reached a pained consensus supporting a “phase down of unabated coal power”. Continue reading...

With only one full day of official talks left, there are no clear agreements on key issues including funding for loss and damageThe UN secretary general, António Guterres, has flown to the attempted rescue of troubled climate talks in Egypt, warning of a “breakdown in trust” between rich and poor governments that could scupper hopes of a deal.He urged countries reaching the final day of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh to find common ground. “There has been clearly, as in past times, a breakdown in trust between north and south, and between developed and emerging economies,” he said. “This is no time for finger pointing. The blame game is a recipe for mutually assured destruction.” Continue reading...

Egypt foreign minister Sameh Shoukry says delegates are shying away from taking ‘difficult political decisions’. This live blog is closedAs global politicians face difficult discussions on the draft over the coming hours, public opinion appears to be supportive of the idea that richer countries should pay loss and damage finances for climate action in poor countries.Damian Carrington, our environment editor writes: A 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 conducted for the Guardian shows.No details of a fund on loss and damage financing for poorer countries“Welcomes” the fact that parties agreed for the first time to include “matters related to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage” on the summit agenda.No call for a phase down on all fossil fuelsStresses the importance of exerting all efforts to meet Paris Agreement goal of holding global average temperature to well below 2C and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C

Campaign group says industry is cruel to sheep and wool is more environmentally damaging than most synthetic fibresIt is jumper season, but your common or garden woollies may soon be a thing of the past: the animal rights group Peta has launched a competition this week to find a vegan alternative to wool that comes with a $1m (£860,500) prize.The Vegan Wool Challenge Award promises the prize money to the first person or company to develop a material that convincingly resembles sheep wool in its texture, functionality and appearance, and has a major clothing brand invest into the material. Continue reading...

Meat-rich wet food causes eight times more emissions, giving some dogs the same carbon footprint as a humanWet cat and dog food is far more environmentally damaging than dry pet food, according to a new study. It found that wet food results in eight times more climate-heating emissions than dry food.The analysis found that a wet food diet for a typical dog resulted in an “ecological pawprint” for the animal that was the same as for its human owner. There are estimated to be 840 million cats and dogs in the world and, with numbers rising, the impact on the environment of feeding them is under increasing scrutiny. Continue reading...

The label on a specimen of Afzelius’s crab simply said ‘Sierra Leone’. But it was enough for an expedition to track it down along with another ‘lost’ freshwater crabTracking down rare species believed to be extinct is never easy, but when Pierre A Mvogo Ndongo travelled to Sierra Leone in January 2021 to search for “lost” species of land-dwelling crabs, the feeling of looking for a needle in a haystack was particularly powerful due to the size of the “haystack”. For one of the species, Afzelius’s crab (Afrithelphusa afzelii), last seen in 1796, the only clue was the label on a specimen that simply said: “Sierra Leone.”Mvogo Ndongo’s expedition was primarily looking for the rainbow-coloured, land-dwelling Sierra Leone crab Afrithelphusa leonensis, lost to science for 65 years and thought to be possibly extinct – one of the species on wildlife charity Re:wild’s 25 “most wanted lost species” list. He also hoped – but never expected – to find, Afzelius’s crab (Afrithelphusa afzelii). Continue reading...

Motoring experts say chancellor’s decision to apply the tax could slow transition to EVs

Environment secretary dashes hopes Sunak government will reverse policy to help reach net zero targets

Jeremy Hunt proposes to raise £14bn by also raising levy to 35% and extending it by two years

Ansto chief says it may not be able to keep producing nuclear medicine if it runs out of waste storage space at its Lucas Heights facility

The CEO of Swiss company Energy Vault says its gravity storage technology can be built anywhere you can build a 20-storey building

Autumn statement backs nuclear power and offshore wind, but says nothing on onshore wind and solar

World faces ‘stark reality that there is no safe limit of global warming for coral reefs’, says researcherYou don’t have to travel far from the sprawling convention center that’s staging the UN climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to see what’s at stake. This coastal resort town is fringed by an ecosystem seemingly facing worldwide cataclysm from global heating – coral reefs.As negotiators haggle over an agreement that may or may not maintain a goal to restrain global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the nearby corals face a more brutally unyielding scenario. Continue reading...

Calls for crackdown on hunt safety during trial of Julien Féral, who shot dead man outside home near ToulouseA hunter who shot dead an Anglo-French man after allegedly mistaking him for a wild boar has gone on trial accused of manslaughter.Morgan Keane, 25, was hit in the chest as he was cutting wood outside his home in a village north of Toulouse, in south-west France, two years ago. Continue reading...

Gleaning, the act of harvesting unused or surplus produce and distributing it to food insecure people is one solution to the interconnected challenges of hunger and food wasteAs the Mar Vista Farmers Market in Los Angeles came to an end, a small team of volunteers in bright orange aprons handed out large cardboard boxes to be filled with unsold heirloom tomatoes, apricots, berries, green peppers, lettuce and eggplants that would have otherwise gone to waste. After being weighed and cataloged, the boxes were stacked into neat piles and picked up by three local organizations that serve people in need.The event was hosted by the North Hollywood, California-based Food Forward. Founded in 2009, the non-profit aims to fight hunger and prevent food waste by rescuing surplus produce from backyards, public orchards, farmers markets and the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market. The group gleans and donates an average of 250,000lb of food each day to more than 340 hunger relief partners throughout 12 California counties, six adjacent states and tribal lands, feeding 150,000 people their five daily servings of fruits and vegetables in the process. Continue reading...

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...

The podcast about the dilemmas facing Pacific Islanders won the Lowy award for best coverage of climate change

Document will provide basis for negotiations over coming days and is likely to be significantly reworked

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...

Vanuatu’s climate change minister says Pacific support for Australian bid should be conditional

‘There’s not much we can do except wait’, say residents anxious to check on damage to homes and businesses

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...

Evidence doesn’t back former editor Chris Mitchell’s assertions in his effort to undermine the nature of global heating

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

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...

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...

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...

New modelling suggests climate change-driven variability will be detectable decades earlier than previously expected

Environmental protection agency says E coli and other contaminants are within safe levels but warn residents not to enter or drink flood waters

Exclusive: Documents show Anthony Roberts made the call in less than a week, after predecessor rejected previous request

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...

Conservation groups have also condemned the legislation, with National Parks Association ‘extremely alarmed’

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...

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...

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...

Australian climate change minister asked to take over struggling summit negotiations over how to fund climate financing for poor countries

Labor party’s environment wing says it’s ‘disappointing’ Albanese government has not joined partnership which would build consensus across OECD

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...