Environment | The Guardian

The city’s plan to rebuild Manhattan’s East River Park on higher ground has incited a dispute over ‘green gentrification’A strip of land that borders New York’s East River has become the latest environmental justice battle as the city prepares to start construction on a flood prevention project in one of Manhattan’s most economically disadvantaged and diverse communities.East River Park, which covers 57.5 acres and loops around lower Manhattan like a hockey stick, is about the only waterfront green space within walking distance of the Lower East Side’s public housing. During Hurricane Sandy, both the park and much of the nearby housing were significantly damaged by historic levels of flooding. Continue reading...

As nurseries run low on stock and labour shortages grow, industry warns Tory pledge cannot be keptPledges to plant trees fall from politicians’ lips like leaves in the autumn, especially during elections and climate summits. Yet ambitious government planting targets are likely to be missed because there are not enough trees or people to plant them, leading forestry figures have warned.Booming demand means that nurseries are already running out of trees, barely weeks into the planting season, according to the Horticultural Trades Association. And a shortage of workers needed to grow, replant and nurture healthy trees has been made worse by Brexit and under-investment in workforce training, according to the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF). Continue reading...

Glasgow glacier symbolises implications for world as global leaders prepare to meet at vital summitBritain is naming a thinning Antarctic ice mass the Glasgow glacier, to symbolise the vast implications for the world of the Cop26 climate conference that starts on Sunday in the Scottish city.More than 120 world leaders will join British prime minister Boris Johnson in Glasgow for the Cop26 summit, one of the world’s last chances to keep alive the goal, agreed in Paris in 2015, of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Continue reading...

Poll finds most Britons believe global warming will have far greater effect on humanity than Covid-19A clear majority of people believe that climate change will have a more significant effect on humanity than will Covid-19, which has already claimed about five million lives worldwide, according to a new poll conducted ahead of the Cop26 summit being held in Glasgow this weekend.The survey, carried out as part of a study into “eco-anxiety” by the Global Future thinktank in conjunction with the University of York, also finds that concern about global warming is almost as common among older and working-class people as it is among those who are young or middle-class. Overall, 78% of people reported some level of eco-anxiety. Continue reading...

After months of home schooling, more and more children are ditching their tech and heading outdoorsAfter more than a year of lockdowns, with limited access to nature, Magdalena Begh was delighted when her six-year-old daughter came home from forest school and informed her she had found three rat skeletons. One of them, Alia told her, was “pretty fresh”. “These little observations are very crucial to their learning – it’s amazing,” says Begh.Since Alia and her sister Hana, nine, started going to the Urban Outdoors Adventures in Nature after-school club in north London in June, they have used clay, learned about insects and made campfires, marmalade and bows and arrows. Continue reading...

While the French and British leaders make political capital out of fishers, the row threatens to spill into crucial Cop26

This week’s talks in Glasgow will be a test of commitment. But there has been little hard diplomacy from Britain, the host nation, to ease the path to an agreementAnyone who listened to Rishi Sunak’s budget speech last Wednesday could be forgiven for concluding that there is nothing particularly urgent for people to worry about – economically or existentially – on the climate front.The chancellor was 35 minutes into his third budget address to MPs before he even alluded to matters environmental. And when a reference finally came it was a fairly brief one – to the government’s “ambitious net zero strategy” – of which he is said to be no great fan. Throughout the entire budget, Sunak did not use the phrase “climate change” once. Continue reading...

Victoria announces state funeral for Bert Newton; international border bans set to end on Monday; Scott Morrison defends Aukus deal at G20 in Rome; Victoria records 1,036 Covid cases, NSW reports 177This blog is now closed

Energy minister refuses to detail full cost of reaching 2050 target as Cop26 summit loomsThe Coalition’s “technology not taxes” plan for net zero emissions by 2050 could cost taxpayers much more than the $20bn allocated by the Morrison government.The emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday that more will need to be spent beyond 2030 to reach the target. Continue reading...

With Cop26 climate summit about to begin, PM Jacinda Ardern says ‘it’s critical we pull our weight’New Zealand has pledged to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, toughening its previous ambitions to limit global warming on the eve of the United Nations Cop26 climate conference.“While we are a small contributor to global emissions, as a country surrounded by oceans and an economy reliant on our land we are not immune to the impact of climate change, so it’s critical we pull our weight,” prime minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement on Sunday. Continue reading...

Campaigners from around the world are uniting to disrupt the Cop26 conference and put pressure on political leadersThousands of protesters from around the world arrived in Glasgow on Saturday to demand urgent action on the escalating ecological emergency before the two-week Cop26 climate conference.Campaigners from scores of environmental justice, indigenous and civil society groups are converging on Scotland’s biggest city to forge alliances and pressure political leaders. Continue reading...

How Guardian journalists reported on the long, twisting road to global action on the climate crisisFrom the earliest global environment conference in the 1970s, through the Rio Earth Summit and 25 subsequent Cops, Guardian journalists have reported on every twist and turn of these gargantuan gatherings, which have attracted hundreds of thousands of delegates over the years.One of the success stories of the conference [is] the little blue and white bicycles parked outside the main buildings used by the UN delegates, UN staff and the press, who have particularly taken to them, sign out a key which fits a lock of any machine. By lunchtime yesterday every key was taken. Continue reading...

Lorna Slater will not attend climate summit which starts in Glasgow on Sunday

The FutureGrid scheme is a tiny replica of Britain’s gas network – but one using a very different, low-carbon, fuelIn the remote hills of Cumbria, a few miles north of Hadrian’s wall, three nondescript terrace houses stand side by side, quietly offering a glimpse of a low-carbon future.The houses are intentionally unremarkable in every way but one: they are the first in the UK to run on a blend of clean-burning hydrogen as part of the most sophisticated hydrogen testing facility in the world. Welcome to Hystreet. Continue reading...

Questions raised over purpose of prosecuting peaceful protestors after activists are found guilty of calling climate-change sceptics ‘liars’Prosecutors are under growing pressure to drop cases against environmental protestors after activists were found guilty of calling the UK’s most prominent climate-change sceptics “liars”.Three campaigners were found guilty of criminal damage after spraying graffiti on the Westminster office of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The organisation, which was once chaired by the former chancellor Nigel Lawson, has been criticised by the Charity Commission for breaking rules on impartiality, with critics accusing it of being the UK’s most prominent source of climate-change scepticism. Continue reading...

Cop26 is about to get under way but are you ready? Take our bumper quiz to find out if you’re a climate hero or net zero when it comes to the big issues Continue reading...

Five men and one woman who have fled Taliban are given no reason for rejectionSix environmental experts from Afghanistan who were due to attend Cop26 as their country’s delegates to the global conference have had their applications rejected just days before the event begins.The six – five men and one woman who cannot be named because it could jeopardise their safety – were looking forward to travelling to the event to help make the concerns of Afghans about the climate emergency heard at the summit. Continue reading...

Thousands from frontline communities in global south have been excluded, activists claimThe global climate summit in Glasgow will be the whitest and most privileged ever, according to campaigners, who warn that thousands of people from frontline communities in the global south have been excluded.World leaders and delegates are expected to be joined by celebrities, corporate chief executives and royals at the critical two-week event.an underlying “hostile attitude” from the UK Home Office towards those travelling from countries in the global south, particularly Africa, which has led to many visas being refused;a failure to honour a pledge to offer Covid vaccines to all delegates, leaving many to search for vaccines in countries with little or no access;constantly changing Covid restrictions for those entering the UK, with travel banned from countries on the UK’s red list, which, until this month, included many of the countries worst hit by the climate crisis. This has left many to seek costly and complicated routes to Glasgow via third countries;an accommodation crisis in the city that has made finding a safe place to stay difficult and expensive. Campaigners have set up a “homestay network” to try to link people up with spare rooms, but say they have thousands on their waiting list Continue reading...

Lord Deben says there is ‘no indication’ Scott Morrison has a plan to deliver the net zero commitment ‘we’ve squeezed out of him’

G20 countries are way off track on delivering on 1.5C. Acknowledging this would be a good start ahead of Cop26The Glasgow Cop26 talks could fail before the conference even begins. This weekend, just as Cop26 starts, the G20 are meeting in Rome. This is a moment of maximum trepidation, as those 20 developed and emerging economies account for 78% of global greenhouse gas emissions. They meet outside the scrutiny and inclusivity of the UN process in Glasgow. What they agree to, or not, could affirm the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C, or put it firmly out of reach for ever.First, the bad news. The G20 communique is a consensus document, a minimum agreement. If one country says no, for example, to specifying a phase-out date for coal, it won’t be in the final communique, so a vaguer formulation may be used.Every week we’ll hear from negotiators from a developing country that is involved in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations and will be attending the Cop26 climate conference. Continue reading...

Glasgow 2021 must be the moment when the promise of Paris 2015 becomes real – history will not forgive us otherwiseSummits do not always live up to the name. They can get bogged down in detail and disagreement, never really reaching altitude.That is often the case with the annual UN climate summits known simply as the Cop, which have earned a reputation since the first was held 26 years ago for being bewildering marathons that overrun and underdeliver.Make a contribution from just £1Become a digital subscriber and get something in return for your money Continue reading...

Estimates for carbon dioxide storage in trees and soil go far beyond upper bounds of what peer-reviewed science suggests is possible

Prime minister says ‘too many countries doing too little’ amid last-minute talks before summitWorld leaders have been warned that Cop26 must “mark the beginning of the end of climate change” amid last-minute talks that could help determine the future of the planet.With the long-awaited environmental summit due to start on Monday, Boris Johnson issued his plea while saying “too many countries are still doing too little”. Continue reading...

Thousands of council workers, including street cleaners, were to strike from 1 NovemberA potentially embarrassing strike by rubbish collectors and street cleaners during the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow has been averted after a last-minute pay offer was made on Friday evening.Thousands of council workers, including rubbish collectors, school janitors and cleaners across the city were to go on strike starting on 1 November as part of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions, raising the prospect of streets overflowing with refuse as the eyes of the world turn to Glasgow. Continue reading...

Prime minister on way to Italy says our civilisation could mimic the decline of the Roman empire ‘unless we get this right’Boris Johnson has likened the globe’s battle against the climate emergency to a football team losing 5-1 at half-time, as he flew to Rome for a world leaders’ gathering seen as crucial for setting the tone for next week’s Cop26 climate summit.Speaking to reporters on the flight to Italy for the G20 meeting, Johnson conceded that he had not always been convinced about climate change, and that his mind had been changed in part by a briefing given by government scientific advisers soon after he became prime minister. Continue reading...

President coy when asked if abortion came up in Vatican meeting, as US Catholic bishops weigh whether to deny him the sacramentJoe Biden said on Friday that Pope Francis told him he should keep receiving communion, after holding an unusually long meeting with him at the Vatican.Asked if abortion came up in the talks, Biden said cryptically the pope told him he was happy he was a good Catholic. Continue reading...

Swedish activist says she has not officially been invited to Glasgow climate summitGreta Thunberg has joined protesters at a “climate justice memorial” in the City of London to protest against the financing of fossil fuel industries ahead of the Cop26 summit.Activists from environmental groups including Pacific Climate Warriors, Coal Action Network and Extinction Rebellion laid wreaths and flowers at the entrance of the Lloyd’s headquarters. Continue reading...

Investigation under way into why thousands of sea creatures are washing up deadAn investigation is under way into why thousands of dead crabs and lobsters are washing up on the Tees estuary and neighbouring north-east beaches in recent weeks.Countless crustaceans have been found, with Marske and Saltburn said to be experiencing particularly high numbers, and the first sightings reported in early October in Seaton Carew, Redcar and farther north in Seaham. Continue reading...

Report of participation in climate summit in Glasgow comes amid criticism of Beijing’s latest net zero plansChina’s president, Xi Jinping, will appear at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow next week via video link, the Associated Press has reported citing China’s foreign ministry, after weeks of speculation over what role Xi might play in the meeting, which opens on Sunday.Xi has not left China since last year, when his country was first engulfed in the deadly Covid outbreak. The foreign ministry separately said on Friday that Xi would take part in this weekend’s G20 leaders’ summit in Rome via video link. Continue reading...

Ten people detained in Essex and nine in Hertfordshire after group’s 16th action on UK roadsInsulate Britain protesters have been arrested walking on to the M25 in several locations, causing major disruption on London’s orbital motorway days before the start of the Cop26 climate summit.In driving rain just after 8am on Friday, two groups affiliated with the climate activist movement walked between lanes of oncoming traffic at junctions 28 and 29 of the M25 in Essex. Continue reading...

Carson residents say they’re unwell as canal’s decomposing vegetation sends off plumes of hydrogen sulfide gasLakesia Livingstone was driving back to her home in Carson, California, in early October after watching her son play football when she was hit with an overpowering stench. “It was like a rotten egg smell, horrible, very strong,” Livingstone says. “I thought, oh my God, something is going on.”That smell has now lasted four weeks, creating chaos for residents of Carson, a city in Los Angeles county. The extraordinary stink – which has been described as “the stench of death” – is coming from a nearby canal where authorities say decomposing vegetation is sending off plumes of hydrogen sulfide gas. Continue reading...

Pontiff calls for ‘rethink on future of our world’ in special message recorded on eve of global summitPope Francis has urged world leaders to take “radical decisions” at next week’s global environmental summit in a special message recorded for BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day.Leaders attending the Cop26 conference in Glasgow must offer “concrete hope to future generations”, the pontiff said. Continue reading...

Heavy downpours in Dumfries and Galloway cause evacuations, school closures and travel disruptionTorrential downpours overnight have caused flooding and disruption across the UK, from Scotland to down to Cornwall, with multiple flood warnings in place as heavy rain continues.The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings across south-west Scotland, north-west England, north Wales and southern parts of England, with heavy rain in places and a risk of localised flooding. Continue reading...

The best of this week’s wildlife pictures, including shadowy horses, a visiting hippo and a released rare ring seal Continue reading...

The top oil executives claim they never approved a disinformation campaign. That is simply not trueFor the first time ever, the executives from four major oil companies and two of the industry’s most powerful front groups testified before Congress about their decades-long effort to spread climate disinformation and block legislation that would reduce US dependence on fossil fuels.Republicans vehemently opposed the premise of Thursday’s House oversight hearing. Yet within the first round of GOP questioning, led by one of the industry’s staunchest defenders, ranking committee member James Comer of Kentucky, the executives inadvertently proved why they were summoned to testify under oath in the first place.Jamie Henn is the founder and director of Fossil Free Media, home of the Clean Creatives campaign, which is pressuring advertising and PR firms to stop working with the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading...

Meddling with drivers guarantees a media storm, but mayors behind ambitious road reclamations are consistently rewardedEvery politician knows the word “bikelash”. From Milan to London, from Sydney to Vancouver, reallocating public space from motor vehicles for people to walk and cycle will inevitably send some residents into paroxysms of anger.But a persistent theme is that voters have time and again reelected the mayors responsible for ambitious road reclamations, often with overwhelming majorities. Although many presume these policies are toxic, projects that make cities more liveable have been shown to be good urban policy and good politics.Janette Sadik-Khan is a former commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation and a principal with Bloomberg Associates. Seth Solomonow is an adviser and strategist with Bloomberg Associates, specialising in public space and sustainable transport infrastructure. The authors provided pro bono advice to Sala and Duggan on their public space plans. Continue reading...

With the region warming twice as fast as the rest of the world but oil spoils keeping regimes in power, leaders are in a bindNorthern Oman has just been battered by Cyclone Shaheen, the first tropical cyclone to make it that far west into the Gulf. Around Basra in southern Iraq this summer, pressure on the grid owing to 50C heat led to constant blackouts, with residents driving around in their cars to stay cool.Kuwait broke the record for the hottest day ever in 2016 at 53.6, and its 10-day rolling average this summer was equally sweltering. Flash floods occurred in Jeddah, and more recently Mecca, while across Saudi Arabia average temperatures have increased by 2%, and the maximum temperatures by 2.5%, all just since the 1980s. In Qatar, the country with the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world and the biggest producer of liquid gas, the outdoors is already being air conditioned. Continue reading...

Before Cop26 in Glasgow, draft document indicates leaders meeting in Rome will pledge to take urgent steps to limit global warmingA draft G20 communique says that world leaders who are gathering for talks in Rome will pledge to take urgent steps to reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.The communique, which was seen by Reuters and is subject to negotiation and changes, indicates the world’s 20 richest countries are on track to commit this weekend to tackling the existential threat of climate change, paving the way for more detailed action at the UN Cop26 climate change summit next week. Continue reading...

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney likens oil company bosses’ responses to those of tobacco industry at historic hearingThe chief executive of ExxonMobil, Darren Woods, was accused of lying to Congress on Thursday after he denied that the company covered up its own research about oil’s contribution to the climate crisis.For the first time, Woods and the heads of three other major petroleum companies were questioned under oath at a congressional hearing into the industry’s long campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating. When pressed to make specific pledges or to stop lobbying against climate initiatives, all four executives declined. Continue reading...

Newborns include leopards, bengal tigers, zebras, giraffes, antelopes and oxen, ‘more than 10 births of high-value species’Zookeepers at Cuba’s National Zoo say several species of exotic and endangered animals took advantage of the peace and quiet brought on by the coronavirus pandemic for romantic encounters that resulted in a bumper crop of baby animals.The newborns include leopards, bengal tigers, zebras, giraffes, antelopes and oxen, a rarity officials attribute to the many months the zoo was closed during the pandemic, said zoo veterinarian Rachel Ortiz. Continue reading...

World’s biggest carbon emitter makes little advance on targets set out in 2015 in announcement days before vital UN talksChina has published its long-awaited national plan on greenhouse gas emissions, just days before the opening of the Cop26 UN climate summit.However, the plan revealed on Thursday represents little progress on the previously announced ambitions of the world’s biggest carbon emitter, disappointing observers of the vital climate talks. Continue reading...

Melinda Pavey delivers more water to agriculture while ramping up campaign to change Murray-Darling Basin plan

Hundreds of billions to be given to clean energy, electric vehicles and flood defenses, officials say – but some key parts left outThe Biden administration has said a vast spending bill is set to result in the “largest effort to combat climate change in American history”, with hundreds of billions of dollars set to be funneled into supporting clean energy, electric vehicles and new defenses against extreme weather events. But some key parts of Joe Biden’s original plan were left out.Following negotiations with Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema, two centrist Democratic senators who have opposed large portions of the original Build Back Better bill, the White House said it was confident a reduced version of the legislation will be able to pass both houses of Congress and will “set the United States on course to meet its climate goals”. Continue reading...

The tools at Biden’s disposal to limit dangerous global heating are enormous. If he wants it, he can do it – but does he want it?After months of bullish rhetoric about the United States’ climate leadership, the US could still show up to COP 26 empty handed. That doesn’t have to be the case – whatever charismatic obstructionists like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema have to say about it. The climate certainly isn’t waiting on them to change: the UN Emissions Gap Report released this week finds that the world is on track to warm by a catastrophic 2.7C degrees.The White House has pegged its Paris Agreement success on being able to pass an ambitious spending package, with plenty of money built in for key climate priorities. In recent weeks the administration pegged its audacious goal, of slashing emission by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to something called a Clean Electricity Payments Program (CEPP). That’s out. And even if the compromise $55bn a year of climate spending the White House promised on Thursday makes it through to legislation, carrots for green spending can only go so far. The US will still not have picked up critical sticks needed to go after the polluting industries driving up temperatures.Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic. She is the co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal (Verso) and the co-editor of We Own The Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style (The New Press) Continue reading...

Arnd Drossel one of many travelling to the summit attempting to raise awareness of the climate crisisArnd Drossel has spent the past three months rolling around inside a 160kg steel ball.The German environmental activist left his home in Paderborn on 30 July in the giant contraption resembling a hamster ball that he made with his son. Continue reading...

If leaders in Glasgow do not act to ratchet up carbon cutting, the alternative is a dialling up of calamitous global heatingCop26 may involve dozens of world leaders, cost billions of pounds, generate reams of technical jargon and be billed as the last chance to prevent calamitous global heating, but at its simplest the climate conference in Glasgow is a debate about dialling up or dialling down risk. Continue reading...

When the CEOs of four top oil firms testify before Congress Thursday, they’ll have two options: apologize for their decades of lies, or risk perjuryToday is a day of history-making climate drama in Washington. At the Capitol Hill end of Pennsylvania Avenue, an unprecedented event: the CEOs of four of the world’s biggest private oil companies are summoned to testify under oath to Congress about their companies’ decades of lying about the lethal dangers their products pose.There’s no mystery about who the villains are in this drama, only about how big oil will play this pivotal moment in the climate emergency: will these executives finally admit their companies’ lies and take responsibility for the havoc they’ve caused? Or will they keep lying, if only by proclaiming that they are now climate champions working to solve the crisis engulfing humanity? Continue reading...

Mathias Cormann, now head of the OECD, was instrumental in repealing the nation’s key climate policy in 2014

Labour accuses chancellor of going ‘headlong in wrong direction’ over tackling climate emergency