Environment | The Guardian

Goal of increasing renewable energy generation 20-fold to be ditched, shareholders to be told this weekBP is expected to ditch a target to ramp up renewable energy generation by 2030 as part of a shift back towards fossil fuels when it presents its strategy to investors this week.The chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, is poised to tell shareholders that the oil and gas company is scrapping its target to increase renewable generation 20-fold between 2019 and 2030 to 50 gigawatts, Reuters reported. Continue reading...

The January blazes wiped out a thriving communal food pathway unique to the Altadena neighborhood, but farmers are starting to plan for its renewalIn Choi Chatterjee and Omer Sayeed's Altadena backyard, beehives produced pounds of honey, copious amounts of fruit and vegetables were harvested, and hens laid plenty of fresh eggs. A couple of pygmy goats and a pair of 100-pound tortoises, Layla and Manju, roamed the urban farm, keeping the weeds trimmed, the compost turned and the soil alive with microbes, much to the delight of the hundreds of visitors who have enjoyed free tours and home-cooked meals since the couple began offering them in 2020.Passersby were often drawn to the Chatterjee-Sayeed residence since the lush butterfly-filled parkway next to their home has served as a free communal garden for more than a decade. Neighbors were welcome to stop by for persimmons, guavas, nopal pads, herbs and varieties of citrus. We'd get 100 to 200 pomegranates and just hand them out to whoever was walking by," said Chatterjee, who is co-director of the Urban Ecology Center at Cal State LA. It was just bustling with life." Continue reading...

Their metamorphosis seems more like a human's than a butterfly's - so much is visible, and awkward, whereas the butterfly forms in secretSome species of frog have eyes so sensitive to light that they can detect a single photon. To confirm this, scientists dissected a frog's eye and removed the lens. If you dissected eyes in biology class, you may remember that a lens is extraordinarily simple and unlike other organs. It is a hard, clearish, object that comes out clean: no blood supply, no blood. It looks like a glass bead, and functions - inanimate - much like glass, and not like most things we find in our body (except maybe teeth, which function like knives). Look through the lens at the classroom around you, you will see it clearly, but upside down.A frog in space, moving further and further from the sun, would eventually start to see not a shrinking star but tiny flashes of light: individual photons. This is because as the photons travel further from their source, they are spread over greater areas: they will hit a frog's eye less and less often. Continue reading...

Result is further evidence that political conversation around the climate crisis has shifted

Environment justice advocates say tools to study pollution in vulnerable communities by companies, including xAI and SpaceX, have disappearedAs Donald Trump's administration continues its purge of federal agencies, environmental justice campaigners are alarmed by the disappearance of federal environmental and climate data tools - some of which have been used to identify pollution concerns about Elon Musk's companies.Several federal agencies, including the EPA and CDC, previously published data regarding pollution levels across the country, as well as data about the vulnerability of each census tract, such as poverty rates and life expectancy. Several of the websites containing that data have gone dark in the weeks following Trump's inauguration. Continue reading...

Emissions estimated at 55m tonnes in 2024 and nearly 230m tonnes in three years of warThe burning of Ukraine's forests at unprecedented rates over the past year has helped push the total greenhouse emissions from the war since Russia's full-scale invasion to almost 230m tonnes, analysis shows.The study, published on the third anniversary of the invasion, found the fighting and its consequences had led to 55m tonnes of emissions in the past 12 months. Continue reading...

The rare sighting of two common short-beaked dolphins hints at an environmental success storyWhen New Yorkers were graced by the presence of two dolphins in the city's East River earlier this month, marine experts said such a sighting was rare - but also a sign that this spring and summer season could be a good one for spotting more marine mammals, both great and small.On the morning of 14 February, a pair of common short-beaked dolphins was spotted alongside Manhattan's Upper East Side. Experts tracking them observed that they lingered until 17 February, swimming up and down the fast-flowing channel that divides Manhattan from the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn and is lined with skyscrapers. Continue reading...

Many of the nations gathering in Rome for Cop16 have offered no plans to honour their agreement to protect 30% of land and sea for natureMore than half the world's countries have no plans to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, despite committing to a global agreement to do so less than three years ago, new analysis shows.In late 2022, nearly every country signed a once-in-a-decade UN deal to halt the destruction of Earth's ecosystems. It included a headline target to protect nearly a third of the planet for biodiversity by the end of the decade - a goal known as 30 by 30". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Top officials and climate policy experts believe delays in cutting emissions make it improbable 2045 target will be metScotland is likely to miss its legally binding climate target by up to 20m tonnes, according to official data seen by the Guardian.The Scottish government set itself the world-leading target of reaching net zero - the point where any excess carbon emissions are soaked up by trees, peat or carbon capture - by 2045. Continue reading...

Hospitals, schools and prisons to be given food welfare targets that should benefit British growers

Despite conflicting laws, a wave of amateur homesteaders have started keeping fowl in the spirit of self-sufficiencyKatie Whalen's backyard in the Florida city of Port St Lucie is testament to her journey towards a life of self-sufficiency. She grows mangoes, avocados, starfruit, jackfruit and coconuts. She is cultivating a tropical tree spinach known as chaya.What she really wants, however, is a chicken coop and hens to provide eggs that are becoming increasingly unaffordable in stores. As bird flu worsens across the US and commercial suppliers struggle to keep up with demand, the keeping of fowl and production of eggs in home environments, has surged in popularity, and Whalen is keen to join the revolution. Continue reading...

Unions have accused UK government of failing to act quickly enough to save jobs, but Labour says it took time to build credible proposalKeir Starmer has announced 200m in funding to boost investment at Grangemouth oil refinery, which is closing down with the loss of more than 400 jobs.The prime minister said the national wealth fund would provide 200m in state investment for up to five companies who moved to Grangemouth, where several thousand jobs in the wider supply chain are also at risk. He said that should leverage up to 600m more in private investment. Continue reading...

Robust group of organizers - including midwives, environmental justice advocates and urban gardeners - rewrite what it means to be from the US mountain regionAppalachia, which spans from southern New York to northern Mississippi, usually evokes images of white working-class people, as depicted in JD Vance's 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. But it's little known to people outside of the region that there's a robust community of Black organizers who are rewriting the narrative of what it means to be Appalachian.While just 10% of Appalachia is made up of Black residents, they are disproportionately impacted by resource extraction that has led to adverse effects on the environment, health and access to food. But Black activists in Appalachia such as Staysha Quentrill, a midwife and reproductive justice advocate in West Virginia; the Right Rev Marcia Dinkins, an environmental justice advocate in Ohio; and Femeika Elliott, a foodways practictioner in Tennessee are working to improve the wellbeing and safety of the people in their communities. Continue reading...

Victim is in a stable condition at a Brisbane hospital with abdominal and leg injuries, authorities say

Former federal employees devastated by president's mass firings: We're at risk of losing our public lands to the billionaire agenda'Approximately 2,300 people have been terminated from the agencies that manage the 35m acres (14m hectares) of federal public lands in the US.These are our lands. They encompass national parks and forests, wilderness and marine protected areas, scenic rivers. They are home to campgrounds, river accesses, hiking trails and myriad other sites and facilities that more than 500 million people visit each year. Continue reading...

Research group says discovery could lead to new type of environmentally friendly farmingA biological mechanism that makes plant roots more attractive to soil microbes has been discovered by scientists in the UK. The breakthrough - by researchers at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, Norfolk - opens the door to the creation of crops requiring reduced amounts of nitrate and phosphate fertilisers, they say.We can now think of developing a new type of environmentally friendly farming with crops that require less artificial fertiliser," said Dr Myriam Charpentier, whose group carried out the research. Continue reading...

Fast fashion and drinks cans among technological-age matter most likely to endure as fossils, say scientistsAs an eternal testament of humanity, plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones are not a glorious legacy. But two scientists exploring which items from our technological civilisation are most likely to survive for many millions of years as fossils have reached an ironic but instructive conclusion: fast food and fast fashion will be our everlasting geological signature.Plastic will definitely be a signature technofossil', because it is incredibly durable, we are making massive amounts of it, and it gets around the entire globe," says the palaeontologist Prof Sarah Gabbott, a University of Leicester expert on the way that fossils form. So wherever those future civilisations dig, they are going to find plastic. There will be a plastic signal that will wrap around the globe." Continue reading...

The PM and his ministers are supporting illiberal laws that hard-right authoritarians could apply with zealIf the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the extreme and far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, the hard-right Reform UK poses as patriotic while grovelling to foreign interests, and this could be its undoing.But we cannot bank on it. The UK government must do all it can to prevent the disaster that has befallen several other European nations. If it fails to meet people's needs and keeps echoing far-right talking points, we could go the same way as Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Sweden and Austria.George Monbiot is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

In Buriticupu, about 1,200 people risk losing their homes, and residents have seen the problem escalate in 30 yearsAuthorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazon have declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes.Several buildings in Buriticupu, in Maranhao state, have already been destroyed, and about 1,200 people of a population of 55,000 risk losing their homes into a widening abyss. Continue reading...

As Ningaloo reef bleaches and an election looms, we must hold to account those who stand in the way of our safety - the small cohort profiting from fossil fuels, and the politicians who protect themLate last spring, I was part of an expedition to Scott Reef, a magnificent coral atoll nearly 300 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. And while it was a privilege to be in such a remote and wonderful place, watching rare and endemic sea life drifting past, the moment I tipped from the boat in my mask and fins, I knew something was wrong.The water was too hot. Not tropical warm, but uncomfortably hot. Continue reading...

The future of Tasmanian salmon farms has become a political issue centred on whether they can coexist with the endangered Maugean skate

Exclusive: Ged Kearney, Kate Thwaites, Josh Burns, Jerome Laxale, Sally Sitou, Alicia Payne, Josh Wilson and Renee Coffey will get extra door-knocking, phone banking and push ads

Concerns are mounting that depleting already thinned ranks will only hamper extreme weather response effortsFederal agencies that play crucial roles in administering conservation, recreation and resource development across roughly than 640m acres of the nation's public lands were thrust into a state of chaos this week after the Trump administration fired thousands of federal workers, leaving key operational gaps in its wake.The agencies are also on the frontline of mitigating the escalating effects from the climate crisis and concerns are mounting that the depletion of already thinned ranks will only hamper efforts to respond and recover from extreme weather events. Continue reading...

US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safetyThe Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: climate."The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump's blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development. Continue reading...

Expert recommendations will influence plans for energy, housing, transport industry and farming for decadesLabour will next week be confronted with stark policy choices that threaten to expose the fault lines between the Treasury and the government's green ambitions, as advice for the UK's next carbon budget is published.Plans for the energy sector, housing, transport, industry and farming will all be called into question in a sweeping set of recommendations for how the UK can meet the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Continue reading...

Tall buildings fare poorly in derechos, say experts, raising questions over their resilience as climate crisis worsensSkyscrapers built to withstand major hurricanes fare much more poorly in less powerful windstorms known as derechos, researchers have found, raising questions for cities worldwide over the resilience of tall buildings as the climate emergency worsens.A team from Florida International University's (FIU) civil and environmental engineering department studied the unexpectedly severe damage caused to buildings in Houston, a city with 50 skyscrapers of 492ft (150 metres) or more, during the 16 May 2024 derecho. Continue reading...

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

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The annual competition draws thousands of entries from across the world and brings together images from below the water's surface that show the diversity and challenges of subaquatic life

From bats to moths, species working the night shift are suffering as light pollution soarsWhen we think about invertebrates, most of us picture bees, butterflies, worms, crabs or perhaps even a jellyfish. But did you know that at least two-thirds of invertebrates are active at night, meaning many are unlikely to be seen? Invertebrates carry out many of the same functions as their daytime counterparts, in some cases doing so with greater efficiency and variety.For centuries, artificial light has been a symbol of progress. From the flickering flames of early fires to the dazzling LED displays of modern cities, light has shaped human civilisation. But while we celebrate its convenience, we often overlook the darker side of our obsession with illumination: light pollution.The Guardian is running the invertebrate of the year competition 2025 - and this time it's global. Nominate your favourite invertebrate, and then, in a few weeks time, we'll vote on which is the best. Continue reading...

Brad Homewood is charged with four offences after a 2021 Extinction Rebellion protest at the Exxon/Mobil depot in Spotswood

Residents in Topanga Canyon - an area of Indigenous heritage and artists - mobilized against the state's decision to bring in hazardous materials after wildfiresTwenty years ago, it was called Rodeo Grounds - an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians and surfers living in beach shacks where Topanga Canyon meets the Pacific Ocean. In a bizarre agreement with the former owner some paid as little as $100 a month for rent, raising multiple generations of their families here since the 1950s. But that was before the state purchased the property and started evicting residents in 2001. Julie Howell, who once owned Howell-Green Fine Art Gallery further up in the canyon, says the bohemians were kicked out.I actually had a show in my gallery 20 years ago for the group of artists who lived there at Rodeo Grounds, who they kicked out of that spot because it was so environmentally sensitive," says Howell. Continue reading...

Velvet worms have rows of pudgy legs, skin speckled like a galaxy and dissolve their prey with sticky gooAn ancient gummy-looking worm-like creature with a vicious hunting method that involves projecting sticky goo from its head has been crowned New Zealand's bug of the year.The Peripatoides novaezealandiae is from the family of velvet worms, or Ngokeoke in the Mori language. The invertebrates have rows of pudgy legs and skin speckled like a galaxy, and are considered living fossils", having remained virtually unchanged for 500m years. Continue reading...

The condition of the state's system was already precarious when the US president ordered billions of gallons be let outFirst, there was Donald Trump's executive order to release billions of gallons of water from two reservoirs in California's Central valley, a move the feds walked back after farmers and water experts decried it as wasteful, ill-conceived - and an unnecessary risk factor for levees in the region.The mandate, said Nicholas Pinter, a professor of applied geoscience at the University of California at Davis who studies California's levees, amounted to hydrologic insanity". Continue reading...

Experts warn victory for Energy Transfer, whose CEO is a Trump donor, could have a chilling' effect on free speechA fossil fuel company's $300m lawsuit against Greenpeace opens in rural North Dakota on Monday, in a case that has been widely condemned by constitutional rights experts as baseless, bad faith litigation that threatens free speech.Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based oil and gas company worth almost $70bn, accuses Greenpeace of defamation and orchestrating criminal behavior by protesters at the Dakota Access pipeline (Dapl). Continue reading...

In Grimsby, locals have created a society focused on the environmental and health benefits more trees provide, planting thousands in schools, parks and hedgerowsBilly Dasein was born on Rutland Street, Grimsby, in the front room of the house where he still lives. His father was a fitter, and his mother a housewife who also worked in the Tickler's jam factory. He left school at 16 and wound up working at Courtauld's synthetic textiles factory.Rows of terrace houses, constructed for workers in the booming fish industry, are set out in a grid structure by the docks. Life was similar on all these streets: doors left unlocked, kids out playing. Everyone knew everyone. Continue reading...

Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries' ability to decarbonise their own economiesEuropean countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to greenwash" their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe's quest to diversify its energy supply. Continue reading...

Groups from Sierra Club to Greenpeace take aim at Trump's drilling orders in term's first environmental legal battlesGreen advocacy groups filed two lawsuits against the Trump administration on Wednesday, marking the first environmental legal challenges against the president's second administration.Both focus on the Trump administration's moves to open up more of US waters to oil and gas drilling, which the plaintiffs say are illegal. Continue reading...

Experts raise fears for England's largest colony at Blakeney Point as they conduct tests to identify source of infectionExperts have raised fears for the seals at England's largest colony after four were found to have died after having been infected with bird flu.Government scientists are investigating to find out whether the seals died after scavenging from the corpses of infected birds. Continue reading...

Activists warn new designation for projects such as pipelines threatens US wetlands and watersEnvironmentalists were outraged on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to fast-track fossil fuel projects through the permitting process, with activists describing it as an attempt to sidestep environmental laws that could harm waterways and wetlands.In recent days, the US Army Corps of Engineers created a new designation of emergency" permits for infrastructure projects, citing a day one executive order signed by Donald Trump which claims the US is facing an energy emergency" and must unleash" already booming energy production. Continue reading...

Site in Cumbria can now return to routine inspections but concerns remain over cybersecurityThe UK nuclear industry regulator has taken Sellafield, the world's largest store of plutonium, out of special measures for its physical security - but said concerns remained over its cybersecurity.Guarding arrangements at the vast nuclear waste dump in Cumbria have improved enough to allow for routine inspections from the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), rather than requiring enhanced regulatory oversight". Continue reading...

Decades-long research shows world's glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023Melting glaciers have caused almost 2cm of sea level rise this century alone, a decades-long study has revealed.The research shows the world's glaciers collectively lost 6.542tn tonnes of ice between 2000 and 2023, causing an 18mm (0.7in) rise in global sea levels. Continue reading...

Bank is criticised for pushing climate targets to 2050 and watering down environmental goalsHSBC has been criticised after it delayed key parts of its climate goals by 20 years, while watering down environmental targets in a new long-term bonus plan for its chief executive, Georges Elhedery, that could be worth up to 600% of his salary.The London-headquartered lender said it was reviewing its net zero emissions policies and targets - which are split between its own operations and those of the clients it finances - after realising its clients and suppliers had seen more challenges" in cutting their carbon footprint than expected. Continue reading...

Poorer countries want rapid emission cuts and more financial help in face of US leader's stance on global heatingDeveloping countries are calling on the rich world to defy the US president, Donald Trump, and bridge the global chasm over climate action, before the goal of limiting global temperatures to safe levels is irretrievably lost.Diplomats from the developing world are rallying to support Brazil, which will host a crucial climate summit in November, after last year's talks in Azerbaijan ended in disappointment and acrimony. Continue reading...

Seeds from the last toromiro, unique to remote Easter Island, were taken away in the 1960s. Now, after a crucial discovery gave hope for its survival, it is making a returnIn the Mataveri Otai nursery on the island of Rapa Nui, Estefany Pate cradles a bag of soil with a 10cm sprout like it is a baby. She caresses its leaves. It's been so emotional to have it here," says Pate, who works for Chile's National Forest Corporation (CONAF).It was here before us; it was here before the moai," she says, referring to the megalithic statues that dot the island. It has a sentimental value." Continue reading...

What is the point of this government?

Attempt to refloat false killer whales was unsuccessful, forcing wildlife authorities to make difficult decision for safety and welfare reasons'

A group of 157 animals that appear to be false killer whales have stranded, according to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania, with initial observations showing 136 animals were still alive on Wednesday morning. Veterinarians and conservationists have responded to the mass beaching, but experts warn inaccessibility and poor conditions may limit their ability to help

Study found electric vehicles and batteries added largest amount to country's clean-energy economyClean energy contributed a record 10% of China's gross domestic product in 2024, an analysis has found.With sales and investments worth 13.6tn yuan (1.5tn; $1.9tn), the sector has now overtaken real estate sales in value. Continue reading...

Growth in 2022 and 2023 was driven by soaring gas prices caused by Russia's invasion, but 2024 saw sales slumpHeat pump sales fell 23% in Europe last year, industry data shows, reverting to the level they were at before the war in Ukraine and slowing the shift away from gas-burning boilers.Demand for clean heating devices fell by about half in Belgium and Germany, and by 39% in France, according to data for 13 countries that cover 85% of the European heat pump market. Continue reading...