Environment | The Guardian

Reducing emissions for cargo ships and planes isn’t as simple as sticking a huge battery in them Continue reading...

Fuel made from waste and synthetic ‘e-fuels’ could reduce emissions significantly but scaling up quickly will be an immense challenge• Why it’s so hard to electrify shipping and aviation – interactiveA powder blue airplane flew from London to Glasgow in September to deliver on a promise. Airlines around the world have committed to decarbonizing the industry – the British Airways flight was meant to demonstrate a decade of progress toward that goal.Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), made partly from recycled cooking oil, along with more efficient engines, a sleeker design and improved air traffic management helped reduce the flight’s carbon emissions by 62% compared with a similar trip in 2010, according to BA. The airline was able to bill the trip as “carbon neutral” because it bought carbon credits to offset the remaining 38% of emissions. Continue reading...

Organisers of Glasgow march claim police risked ‘chaos’ by failing to adhere to agreed arrangements

Plan to transform 130 hectares of Allestree Park could see reintroduction of species such as red kite and harvest mouse“I’m excited about the potential for large wildflower-rich grassland areas mixed with naturally regenerating scrub,” said Prof Alastair Driver, director at Rewilding Britain. “It won’t be long before these areas are ringing with warbler song and sizzling with grasshoppers and crickets.”The source of Driver’s excitement is Allestree Park, the largest open space in Derby, to which Derby city council has given the green light this week to become what Rewilding Britain believes to be the UK’s largest urban rewilding project. Continue reading...

Countries do not have to include armed forces’ emissions in their targets despite estimates sector creates 6% of greenhouse gases

BoM has issued storm warnings for NSW and Queensland; court approves extradition of Mostafa Baluch on drug charges. This blog is now closed

UN and EU say the agreement could help pave the way to wider breakthrough, though concerns remain over ‘patchy details’An unexpected agreement between the US and China to work together on cutting emissions has been broadly welcomed by leaders and climate experts.The world’s two biggest emitters appeared to put aside their differences at the Cop26 climate summit and on Wednesday unveiled a joint declaration that would see close cooperation on emissions cuts that scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C. Continue reading...

Pulp frontman weighs in on Cop26, Brexit and arts cuts as Let’s Stick Around is released

On day 10 of the conference China’s climate spokesman said the countries would work together to ‘enhance climate action’

In a surprise press conference, the two superpowers promised to cooperate more and hoped for the success of Cop26China and the US announced a surprise plan to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial next decade, in a strong boost to the Cop26 summit, as negotiators wrangled over a draft outcome.The world’s two biggest emitters had been trading insults for the first week of the conference, but on Wednesday evening unveiled a joint declaration that would see the world’s two biggest economies cooperate closely on the emissions cuts scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C. Continue reading...

Poorer nations say the rich must come forward with more money to help them cope with global heating

How such catastrophes occur remains mysterious. But research suggests that Earth may experience a cascade of disruptions when stressedFive times in the last 500m years, more than three-fourths of marine animal species perished in mass extinctions. Each of these events is associated with a major disruption of Earth’s carbon cycle. How such catastrophes occur remains mysterious. But recent research increasingly points to the possibility that the Earth system – that is, life and the environment – may experience a cascade of disruptions when stressed beyond a tipping point.As world leaders gather at Cop26 in Glasgow, it makes sense to rally behind concrete goals such as limiting warming to 1.5C. If we don’t meet such a goal, we’ll know it soon. Mass extinctions, on the other hand, may require tens of thousands of years or more to reach their peak. But if they are indeed the result of a disruptive cascade, we must act now to prevent such a runaway process from starting.Daniel H Rothman is a professor of geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-directs MIT’s Lorenz Center, which is devoted to learning how climate works Continue reading...

The Guardian’s anonymous insiders respond to the publication of a draft deal at the climate conference

Official projectionists hit back with animations and ‘go away’ after activists beam climate slogans

Even the industry’s own data suggests its impact on emissions is extraordinarily marginal

Environment campaigners say the Morrison government’s attempt to remove the reference to 1.5C is ‘hugely significant’ and ‘bewildering’

Nearly three years after draft bill was published, activists say Environment Act must lead to real actionAfter 1,056 days, three Queen’s speeches, countless hours of drafting, campaigning, protest and debate, the first environment bill for 26 years has passed into law.Environmental activists at the heart of first pressing for the bill and then attempting to make it the best it could be, said its enactment was momentous. Continue reading...

Activists tell of how extractive industries are intertwined with violence against women and girls

Council in suburb of Carabanchel Alto urged to do more amid fears parasitic disease could spread to humansThe people of Carabanchel Alto haven’t always hated the interlopers. Once upon a time, they welcomed them, thrilling to their wildness and exoticism.Five years on, however, curiosity has given way to exasperation and the signs of one of Madrid’s most intractable turf wars are all too evident in the schoolyards, parks and gardens of this south-western corner of the Spanish capital. Continue reading...

After forcing the closure of an oilwell that was making her family and community sick, Cobo seemed about to become a household name – but then she fell seriously illAt the age of nine, Nalleli Cobo started getting nosebleeds so severe that she had to sleep sitting up so as not to choke on the blood. Then there were the stomach cramps, nausea, headaches and body spasms, which made walking difficult. For a time she wore a heart monitor as doctors struggled to understand what was wrong.But it wasn’t just Cobo. The nine-year-old was growing up in University Park, a low-income, majority-Latino neighborhood in Los Angeles, the smoggiest city in the US, which ranks highest in the country for deaths linked to air pollution. She and her three older siblings were raised by her Mexican mother, grandmother and two great-grandparents. (Her father was deported to Colombia when she was three.) And suddenly, almost her entire family was ill – including her mother, who developed asthma at 40, as did her grandmother at 70. Continue reading...

Net zero is popular among polluters for good reason – it’s toothless compared to emissions restrictions and a carbon tax“Make no mistake, the money is here, if the world wants to use it,” said Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who today serves as UN climate envoy, while also representing an alliance of financiers sitting on a pile of $130tn worth of assets. So, what does the world want? If only humanity had the power to organise a global poll based on one-human-one-vote, such a species-wide referendum would undoubtedly deliver a clear answer: “Do whatever it takes to stop emitting carbon now!” Instead, we have a decision-making process culminating in the colossal fiasco currently unfolding in Glasgow.The failure of Cop26 reflects our failed democracies on both sides of the Atlantic. President Biden arrived in Glasgow as his people back in Washington were pushing his infrastructure bill through Congress – an exercise that decoupled the bill from any serious investment in renewables and funded an array of carbon-emitting infrastructure such as expanded roads and airports. Meanwhile in the European Union, the rhetoric may be painted in bright green, but the reality is dark brown – with even Germany looking forward to copious amounts of Russian natural gas in exchange of green-lighting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The EU should be creating a pan-European Renewable Energy Union, but alas our leaders are not even debating this idea. Continue reading...

Chris Bowen says CCS technology ‘not the answer to all our problems’ but leaves door open to backing changes to allow investment

Prime minister spruiks ‘can do capitalism’ during speech in Victoria; TGA has invited Moderna to apply for approval to give its Covid vaccine to children aged six to 11. This blog is now closed

As Romanian mines close, some cannot afford the EU-funded ‘Just Transition’ retrainingThree hundred metres below ground, Sebastian Tirintică operates an elevator at the Livezeni mine in Romania’s Jiu valley. His eyes widen with concentration as he guides the lever to lower the cage, ferrying the iron, wood, and other materials his co-workers need to extract coal. His focus keeps his fellow miners alive, which could be said for everyone working at Livezeni. Most of the equipment is more than 30 years old. Miners go underground knowing that a ceiling support could collapse or that a conveyor belt could snap. In seven years working inside the mine, Tirintică has been buried in coal three times. Each time, his co-workers pulled him out.“Danger unites us,” he said. “The brotherhood of the underground. You know that your colleague behind you can save your life.” Continue reading...

Ending unsustainable commercial exploitation of the Earth’s ‘blue heart’ is as vital as curbing fossil fuel use, says pioneering biologistWorld leaders gathered for Cop26 must ban industrial fishing on the high seas to have a chance of preserving the ocean, the Earth’s “largest carbon-capturing and oxygen-generating system”, the deep-sea explorer and oceanographer Sylvia Earle has said.Earle, 86, has clocked up more than 7,000 hours underwater and holds several records, including in 1979 for the deepest untethered dive by a woman. Continue reading...

Zoological Society of London carries out most comprehensive survey since 1950sSeahorses, eels, seals and sharks are living in the tidal Thames, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the waterway since it was declared biologically dead in the 1950s.But scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), who carried out the work, warn that the 95 miles of the tidal Thames is suffering from rising nitrate levels as a result of industrial runoff and sewage discharges. Water levels and temperature are also rising as a result of global heating. Continue reading...

Greta Thunberg among young people filing legal suit for climate crisis to be declared a global level 3 emergencyGreta Thunberg and youth climate activists from around the world are filing a legal petition to the UN secretary-general urging him to declare a “system-wide climate emergency”.As Cop26 enters its final days, climate campaigners were due to file a legal document on Wednesday calling on António Guterres to use emergency powers to match the level of response adopted for the coronavirus pandemic by pronouncing the climate crisis a global level 3 emergency – the UN’s highest category. Continue reading...

Interconnectors – linking areas rich in hydro, wind or solar power – can help to even out fluctuations in weatherWhen the weather is calm, wind turbines stop turning. That’s obvious, but as the UK increasingly relies on wind power generation, so an energy crunch looms if the wind doesn’t blow.

Co-author Prof Jacek Jasieniak says city’s CBD could be a photovoltaic ‘powerhouse’

Matt Kean urges the Coalition government to ‘go a lot further’ to help drive EV uptake

The Dixie fire grew most explosively on nine of 10 such days, finds analysis of weather station and fire dataOn late summer and autumn days, when the hot, howling winds sting the skin and chap the lips, Holly Fisher starts to feel a bit unsettled. So do many of her neighbors in the town of Paradise, a name that evokes bitter irony in northern California.“It feels eerie,” she said. Three years ago, this arid, blustery weather portended the Camp fire. It consumed the town, killed more than 80 people, and burned down Fisher’s home. As the region reeled in the aftermath, the same potent convergence of weather conditions – known as “fire weather” – helped fuel the North Complex fire in 2019, and the Caldor and Dixie fires this year. Continue reading...

PM will travel to Glasgow by train following criticism for flying back to London by private jet last weekBoris Johnson will make a day trip to the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow on Wednesday to urge climate negotiators to “pull out all the stops” – travelling by train, after he was criticised for flying back by private jet last week.The prime minister attended the opening days of the summit with scores of other world leaders before returning to Westminster and leaving the Cop president, Alok Sharma, to oversee the complex negotiations. He will attend on Wednesday but is not set to be in Glasgow at the end of the summit this weekend, as some had expected. Continue reading...

Country was down four places on greenhouse gas index and was the only one to score zero on policy

UK’s chief science adviser says lifestyle changes needed to have chance of 1.5C

Readers Adam Manolson, Linda Marriott, Robin Bevis and Bob Taylor are not surprised at the findings of a survey which suggests many people don’t feel they need to do more to fight global heatingThe results of this survey are sad but unsurprising (Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds, 7 November). At the weekend, I took my 12-year-old son by bus across west London to his football match. While the world discusses how to address climate change, everyone in west London is out driving a 4x4.The vast majority of children going to play football and rugby on the pitches where we spent the morning were driven there. The roads were gridlocked, the car parks were full, and tempers were fraying. Yet the parents will make the same choices next weekend – and no doubt what I saw is reflected up and down the country. In London in particular there really is no excuse: the city has a comprehensive public transport system, with free buses for children. When will people wake up to the fact that they themselves are the traffic, the congestion and the pollution?

Rules will be changed to allow Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest in carbon capture and storage before fund set up

Climate crisis cannot be ended without the empowerment of women, politicians and campaigners tell summit“The world as designed by men has destroyed many things,” Cop26 delegates have been told, as leaders and campaigners warned that the climate crisis could not be ended without the empowerment of women.Women and girls around the world suffer disproportionately from the impacts of climate breakdown, as they are on average poorer, less educated and more dependent on subsistence farming. A UN report found 80% of those displaced by the climate emergency are women. Continue reading...

Our climate analysis shows there’s a nearly 1C difference between countries’ 2030 commitments and their 2050 targets

Research from world’s top climate analysis coalition contrasts sharply with last week’s optimism

Sustainable food systems are a cornerstone to cutting emissions but have been largely absent from the agenda in Glasgow“The cow in the room is being ignored at this Cop,” says Carl Le Blanc of Climate Healers. “Animal agriculture has been taken off the agenda and put on the menu.”Le Blanc was one of a number of campaigners who joined climate marches on Saturday in Glasgow to demand action for a new sustainable food system. They fought strong gales to make their point with four giant inflatable animals tethered on ropes above their heads or strapped to the ground. Each symbolised a different problem of the livestock industry: a 40ft cow for methane, a chicken for Covid and health, a fish for microplastics, and a pig for obesity. Continue reading...

Failure to pass Build Back Better would disillusion a generation of voters, and potentially fracture the Democratic partyDeep into the night last Friday, long past the hour when most Americans had ceased paying attention, Congress passed the $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill otherwise known as the BIF. Its passage was heralded as a victory for President Biden, and the daily news chyrons dutifully marked a point in his column. But beyond the horserace myopia of the Beltway – and especially among young people – the news came tinged with the threat of disaster. Because for those of us interested in sustained human civilization on a habitable planet, the most relevant fact about the BIF is this: without consequent passage of the clean energy and social welfare bill known as Build Back Better, the BIF alone will exacerbate the climate crisis.The reasons are manifold. The bill is riddled with exemptions and subsidies for corporations like ExxonMobil, whose lobbyists were caught bragging about their role in shaping the text. It invests in highways, bridges and airports that – in the absence of an aggressive drive to electrify cars and planes – will only add to emissions from the transportation sector. And the climate funding it does contain is focused not on drawing down emissions but on preparing Americans for worsening floods, fires and superstorms. If this is all we get, the message to young people is clear: Exxon will continue to be allowed to drown your homes, but not to worry, the government is investing in some life vests. Good luck! Continue reading...

At Cop26 Sir Patrick Vallance has said he eats less meat and cycles but society needs to change moreChanges in behaviour are needed to tackle the climate emergency, the UK’s chief scientific adviser has said at the Cop26 summit.Sir Patrick Vallance said behaviour change was starting to happen but needed to go further and said he cycled to work, ate less meat and had taken the train to the climate summit in Glasgow. He also said the climate crisis was a far bigger problem than coronavirus and would kill more people if immediate changes were not made. Continue reading...

As the world shifts to wind energy and electric cars, demand for the conductive metal has increased. But mining copper brings its own environmental hazardsThis story is co-published by New Mexico In Depth and Guardian USCorky Stewart, a retired geologist, and his wife live in a rural subdivision in New Mexico’s Grant county, about a mile north of the sprawling Tyrone copper mine. Continue reading...

Not so long ago Morrison said Labor’s electric cars policy would ‘end the weekend’. Now he’s spruiking his own plan, but there’s no substance to it

PM, who suggested EVs would ‘end the weekend’ during last election campaign, says he now expects them to make up only 30% of new sales by 2030

National Australia Bank commits to cap lending to oil and gas at US$2.4bn but Market Forces calls it a ‘cynical greenwashing exercise’

Climate crisis is driving up deadly combination of temperature and humidity, says study released at Cop26

Engineering firm to proceed with rollout after UK government agrees to match consortium’s investmentRolls-Royce will move ahead with a multibillion pound plan to roll out a new breed of mini nuclear reactors after securing more than £450m from the government and investors.The engineering firm will set up a venture focused on developing small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, in partnership with investors BNF Resources and the US generator Exelon Generation with a joint investment of £195m to fund the plans over the next three years. Continue reading...

Increased demand for PPE has put pressure on an already out-of-control global problem, report findsPlastic waste from the Covid-19 pandemic weighing 25,900 tonnes, equivalent to more than 2,000 double decker buses, has leaked into the ocean, research has revealed.The mismanaged plastic waste, consisting of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, vastly exceeded the capability of countries to process it properly, researchers said. Continue reading...

Day eight at the Glasgow summit focuses on loss, adaptation and damage