Environment | The Guardian

More than half a million people gathered in Rizal Park in Manila on Sunday wearing white shirts and carrying signs reading 'transparency for a better democracy'. Concerns rose after the country's president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, published an internal audit into flood control projects in August that revealed significant irregularities. It showed that of almost $10bn in spending, thousands of projects were substandard, poorly documented or non-existent

Castle Water says restructuring plans do not go far enough and extra funds will help resolve pollution crisis

The search for a ginkgo-toothed beaked whale had taken five years, when a thieving albatross nearly ruined it allIt was an early morning in June 2024 and along the coast of Baja California in Mexico, scientists on the Pacific Storm research vessel were finishing their coffee and preparing for a long day searching for some of the most elusive creatures on the planet. Suddenly a call came from the bridge: Whales! Starboard side!"For the next few hours, what looked like a couple of juvenile beaked whales kept surfacing and disappearing until finally Robert Pitman, a now-retired researcher at Oregon State University, fired a small arrow from a modified crossbow at the back of one of them. Continue reading...

A new study suggests heatwaves will not revert back towards preindustrial conditions for at least 1,000 years after emissions target reached

Wait ... I'm hearing you have worked it out you're just not doing it

Analysis shows small hike in populations of insect-eating species after 2018 ruling, but full recovery may take decadesInsect-eating bird populations in France appear to be making a tentative recovery after a ban on bee-harming pesticides, according to the first study to examine how wildlife is returning in Europe.Neonicotinoids are the world's most common class of insecticides, widely used in agriculture and for flea control in pets. By 2022, four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, researchers observed that France's population of insect-eating birds had increased by 2%-3%. These included blackbirds, blackcaps and chaffinches, which feed on insects as adults and as chicks. Continue reading...

Marina Silva says contentious plan would be ethical answer' to climate crisis but does not commit Brazil to itBrazil's environment minister, Marina Silva, has urged all countries to have the courage to address the need for a fossil fuel phaseout, calling the drawing up of a roadmap for it an ethical" response to the climate crisis.She emphasised, however, that the process would be voluntary for those governments that wished to participate, and self-determined". Continue reading...

Ending use of coal, oil and gas is essential in tackling climate crisis - but even talking about it is controversial Continue reading...

Champions of exceptionalism say humans hold a unique moral status. Yet there's only one species recklessly destroying the planet it needs to surviveAt first light in Massachusetts bay, a North Atlantic right whale threads the shallows with her calf tucked into her slipstream. She surfaces, and the V-shaped breath - two brief feathers of vapor - vanishes in the cold air.The calf is roughly three months old, about the length of a small truck, still learning the rhythm: rise, breathe, tuck back into mother's wake. They are doing what every mammal mother and baby do: moving toward food and a safer place. Continue reading...

Rescue operations in Wales, submerged railway lines in Cornwall - these events are ever more common. So why have we utterly failed to prepare?As autumn blurs into winter, the news is once again filling up with a familiar story: overflowing rivers, inundated streets and overwhelmed infrastructure. Since Friday, England, Wales and Ireland have been hit by the storm the Spanish meteorological agency has elegantly named Claudia, with grim results. One place in particular massively bore the brunt of it all: the Welsh border town of Monmouth, where the raging River Monnow spilled into the streets, people had to be rescued from their homes and drones captured aerial views of the scene, showing fragile-looking buildings suddenly surrounded by a huge clay-brown swamp.Claudia and her effects made it into the national headlines - but mostly, local and regional floods now seem too mundane to attract that kind of attention. Eleven days ago, Cumbria saw submerged roads, blocked drains and over 250 flood-related problems reported to the relevant councils. Railway lines in Cornwall were submerged; in Carmarthen, in west Wales, there were reports of the worst floods in living memory. But beyond the areas affected, who heard about these stories? Such comparatively small events, it seems, are now only to be expected.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Nationals and Liberals agree on new emissions plan after joint party room as opposition leader promises new immigration policy within weeks

Falcon fledglings' inaugural flight watched by dedicated fans includes dramatic crash-landing

Late last week, three peregrine falcons - two females and one male - left their ledge high above Melbourne's CBD for the first time. One suffered a dramatic crash landing but successfully left the nest on the second attempt. The trio hatched at the end of September with thousands tuning into a 24-hour live stream of their nest.

Commons committee report challenges lazy narrative' used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environmentNature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods. Continue reading...

In this post-truth environment, the interests of coal and gas are somehow able to win the hearts and minds of voters

Offsets were meant to be a last resort for mitigating environmental damage from development projects, but rapidly became the default

Exclusive: Growth has been steady even since Trump's re-election, building on increase from $20bn to $157bn, says thinktank

Area's MP says it would cost more than local council's annual budget to remove the 10-metre high pile of wasteFly-tippers have dumped a mountain of illegal waste" in Oxfordshire so large that removing it could cost more than the local council's annual budget, the area's MP has said.Hundreds of tonnes of waste, stacked 10 metres high, appeared in a field between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington. One charity called the huge dump of rubbish an environmental catastrophe unfolding in plain sight". Continue reading...

In January the island's beaches were inundated with waves of plastic pollution, a phenomenon that has been getting worse by the year. Photographer and film-maker Sean Gallagher travelled to Bali to document the increasing tide of rubbish washing up on beaches and riverbanks, and the people facing the monumental challenge of cleaning up. His portraits are on show as part of the 2025 Head On photo festival at Bondi Beach promenade until 30 November Continue reading...

Sonia Guajajara tells Cop30 the rights of traditional communities must be maintained in the face of exploitation by the mining industryCountries must recognise the demarcation of Indigenous lands as a key component of tackling the climate crisis, and civil society must help in the defence of such lands against mining interests, Brazil's minister for Indigenous peoples has said.Sonia Guajajara, a longtime Indigenous activist before being appointed a minister by President Lula da Silva, said: [Among the goals of the Cop30 summit is] a request that countries recognise the demarcation of Indigenous lands as climate policy." Continue reading...

A huge cleanup effort has seen volunteers working to remove beads by hand and machine. They can only wait and see the extent of damage to wildlife and dune habitatJust past a scrum of dog walkers, about 40 people are urgently combing through the sand on hands and knees. Their task is to try to remove millions of peppercorn-sized black plastic biobeads from where they have settled in the sand. Beyond them, a seal carcass grins menacingly, teeth protruding from its rotting skull.Last week, an environmental disaster took place on Camber Sands beach, on what could turn out to be an unprecedented scale. Eastbourne Wastewater Treatment Works, owned by Southern Water, experienced a mechanical failure and spewed out millions of biobeads on to the Sussex coastline. Southern Water has since taken responsibility for the spill. Ironically, biobeads are used to clean wastewater - bacteria attach to their rough, crinkly surface and clean the water of contaminants.Camber Sands is one of England's most popular beaches, with rare dune habitat Continue reading...

Ford denies having created defeat devices' in legal action on behalf of 1.6 million owners against five carmakersAbout a million Ford diesel cars were sold in the UK with serious defects in components supposed to curb toxic exhaust emissions, the high court has been told.The highly polluting vehicles were produced and sold between 2016 and 2018 after Ford's engineers became aware of the issues, and many were never formally recalled or fixed, lawyers said. Continue reading...

With a reported boom in people becoming snake handlers, Guardian Australia's Joe Hinchcliffe attended a venomous snake handling course in Queensland to investigate what's involved in training to wrangle some of the world's deadliest snakes. Christina Zdenek and Chris Hay, the herpetologist pair running the course, say they've observed a growth in their industry: '[The] number of snake catchers has exploded in Australia, and that's in every Australian state,' says Chris. 'And every year we hear about this increase in snake numbers. But the fact is it's the increase in human population that is then catalysing this increase in snake interaction.'

The fossil-fuel era is drawing to a close, but at a pace far too slow for the planet's good or a fair transition to a clean energy futureThe weather in Belem, wrote the Guardian's environment editor, offers a convenient metaphor for the UN climate talks being held in the Brazilian city. Sunny mornings begin in blazing optimism before the Amazon's clouds gather and the deluge begins. Cop30 has followed the same pattern. It opened with sunshine - an agenda agreed on day one. The storms were deferred for later consultations" on climate finance, carbon border tariffs and the question of how to close the yawning gap between national climate pledges and the Paris agreement's safe pathway. These await Cop30's second week.They are likely to be more than mere squalls. The International Energy Agency confirmed last week that the fossil-fuel era is ending. Its annual report said the world will hit peak coal, oil and gas this decade and see declines thereafter. The economist Fadhel Kaboub, who advises developing nations on climate, argues this is not because of political will, but because the economics of renewables is winning". Africa, he says, can generate about 1,000 times the electricity it will need in 2040 - which could be exported. Globally, however, hydrocarbon use is easing far too slowly. The fight over money and a just transition matters at Cop30.Do 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...

Weaning ourselves off gas is the only way to reduce energy bills long term. Cutting support for this is exactly the sticking-plaster politics' Labour promised to endAfter years of painfully high energy bills, diminishing household budgets and stalled investment, this year's budget, on 26 November, should be the moment when the government finally starts to confront why the UK's energy system is so expensive. And yet, if recent briefings suggesting that Labour will dramatically scale back the heat pump subsidy for households are to be believed, it is now repeating exactly the same mistakes as its predecessors.People want relief from painful energy bills. In the long term, electrification is the only way to provide this. In practice, that means switching from gas boilers to heat pumps, shifting from petrol cars to electric vehicles: boosting access to technologies that are modern, cheaper to run, and are already becoming mainstream. At present, our energy system protects the legacy gas-based system, subsidising supply and penalising demand in ways that keep gas artificially cheap and electricity artificially expensive, even when electric technologies cost less to operate.Camilla Born is the CEO of Electrify Britain, a campaigning organisation founded by EDF and Octopus EnergyDo 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...

Munduruku people demand to speak to Brazil's president, saying they are never listened to

Dozens of Indigenous activists blocked the entrance of the Cop30 summit venue on Friday, demanding that the Brazilian government halt all development projects in the Amazon, including mining, logging, oil drilling and the building of a new railway for transporting mining and agricultural products. The protesters staged a sit-in creating long queues and forcing delegates to use a side entrance to resume their negotiations on tackling the climate crisis

Plastic pellets attract algae and smell like food so can be eaten by birds, fish and dolphins, which can prove fatal

Local people describe devastating impact of millions of toxic beads from Southern Water site near Camber Sands

Jonathan Jarvis, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017, laid out the dire consequences of not closing parks in shutdownAmericans should raise hell" to protect US national parks through the nightmare" of Donald Trump's presidency, according to a former National Park Service director, amid alarm over the impact of the federal government shutdown.Jonathan Jarvis claimed the agency was now in the hands of a bunch of ideologues" who would have no issue watching it go down in flames" - and see parks from Yellowstone to Yosemite as potential cash cows", ripe for privatization. Continue reading...

Senate inquiry hears how propagandised misinformation' is drowning out legitimate concerns in Australia's regions over renewable energy

Diane Wilson recognized Exxon's playbook - and showed how local people can take on even the most entrenched industriesWhen ExxonMobil announced it would slow the pace of development" on a $10bn plastics plant along the Texas Gulf coast, the company blamed market conditions. But it wasn't just the market applying pressure; it was a 77-year-old shrimper named Diane Wilson who refused to stay silent. Her fight exposes big oil's latest survival plan: ramping up oil and gas production to create plastic.I first met Wilson back in 2019 while tracking her historic lawsuit against Formosa Plastics, the Taiwanese petrochemical giant accused of dumping toxic plastic waste throughout coastal Texas. Billions of tiny plastic pellets were contaminating waterways, shorelines and even the soil itself.Shilpi Chhotray is the co-founder and president of Counterstream Media and Host of A People's Climate for the Nation Continue reading...

From deforestation to emissions trading, vital policies are being watered down in the name of competitiveness'. But Europe is shooting itself in the footClimate action has long been a flagship European policy. As negotiators gather in Brazil for Cop30, however, Europe's leadership risks faltering. Things were very different a decade ago in Paris, when a landmark deal to limit global heating to 1.5C was achieved at Cop21. That agreement relied on an understanding between the US and China - one that would be difficult to replicate today. Its ambition was elevated by Europe acting in concert with a broad coalition of global south countries.The Paris climate agreement paved the way for the European Green Deal in 2019, which enshrined into law the ambition of climate neutrality in the EU by 2050 and introduced the world's first comprehensive plan to achieve it, featuring a robust set of pricing, regulatory and funding measures.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading...

Charvet Drucker captures dramatic video and photos of seal being hunted by orcas in Salish Sea, north-west of SeattleA wildlife photographer on a whale-watching trip in waters off Seattle captured dramatic video and photos of a pod of killer whales hunting a seal that survived only by clambering on to the stern of her boat.Charvet Drucker was on a rented 20ft (6 metre) boat near her home on an island in the Salish Sea about 40 miles north-west of Seattle when she spotted a pod of at least eight killer whales, also known as orcas. Continue reading...

If the government cuts a deal with them, it risks repeating the mistakes of the Abbott era, sacrificing progress for politicsThis week the National Liberal Coalition has rewound the clock a decade. When Tony Abbott's government abolished the Climate Commission in 2013, I knew it was a political act of climate vandalism. Abbott simply didn't want to hear the facts: that pollution from coal, oil and gas were cooking our planet.For a decade after, denial evolved: from shouting that global heating wasn't real, to claiming it could be solved later. Continue reading...

Climate Action Tracker report finds pledges made in past year have not cut the forecast for global heatingMore than half of all delegation members at Cop30 have withheld or obscured details of their affiliations, potentially concealing conflicts of interest and undermining trust in the Cop process, warns Transparency International.According to the campaign group's examination of the UNFCCC's official list of registered participants, 54% of participants in national delegations either did not disclose the type of affiliation they have or selected a vague category such as Guest" or Other".Yet, at Cop30, thousands of delegates still do not share enough information, most from within national delegations. If Cop30 is indeed the Cop of truth, the lresidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat should now commit to reviewing and strengthening participant disclosure rules ahead of future summits, ensuring integrity and accountability at every level. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Supporters say grants largely going to middle-class households, but experts warn move will slow transition from gas boilersHundreds of thousands of homeowners will lose their right to subsidies for eco-friendly heat pumps as a result of government plans to bring down energy bills at the budget.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is planning to announce a series of measures to bring down energy bills amid concerns the country's stubbornly high cost of living is driving millions of voters to Reform UK. Continue reading...

Figures show none of US big four' - CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox - appear to have sent teams to cover summit in BelemThousands of media professionals are at the United Nations climate talks in Brazil. Almost none of them appear to be from the four major US broadcasters.Nearly 4,000 members of the media registered to attend the global climate conference, known as Cop30, according to a preliminary list released by the United Nations climate body on Tuesday. But none of the big four" US broadcasters - CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox - appear to currently have teams present at the talks. Continue reading...

Advocates say conservative states' push to define gender as biological sex' would backslide on decade-old language within the UNA row over the definition of the term gender" threatens to bog down pivotal talks at the Cop30 climate summit.Before the UN talks in Brazil, hardline conservative states have pushed to define gender as biological sex" over their concerns trans and non-binary people could be included in a major plan to ensure climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women. Continue reading...

Mining crew had hit unknown pocket of water last Saturday about three-quarters of a mile into the mineCrews have found the body of the coal miner missing since a West Virginia mine flooded on Saturday, said the state's governor, Patrick Morrisey, on Thursday.Crews found the body inside Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc's Rolling Thunder Mine near Belva, about 50 miles east of the state capital of Charleston. Continue reading...

Sussan Ley appears to have given up trying to meet voters where they are, instead allowing conservative MPs to dictate policy to keep her job - and keep the Coalition together

Videos show schoolgirls fighting off animals, while others show people feeding bears, with some so realistic that users struggled to distinguish between fact and fictionIf a record number of fatal bear attacks wasn't terrifying enough, experts say a torrent of AI-generated videos in Japan purporting to show people in close encounters with the animals is only adding to public anxiety - and could put people at greater risk.While headlines about real attacks and disruption appear on a regular basis, monitors of online content are warning social media users not to be taken in by realistic videos on platforms such as TikTok of the animals attacking or interacting with humans. Continue reading...

Troubled waters over the world's longest suspension bridge are no surprise. The Italian government should be funding public servicesA dozen or so times each day, as Italy's southbound Intercity rail service arrives in the Calabrian town of Villa San Giovanni, the journey comes to a dramatic halt. The train is lifted from its tracks, carefully loaded on to the deck of a ferry, and secured in place. The entire cargo then eases out into the Strait of Messina en route to Sicily. Invariably, this 25-minute crossing becomes an impromptu community moment. Passengers abandon their carriages, flocking to the ship's top-deck snack bar to share freshly fried arancini, trade anecdotes, and admire the vista towards Mount Etna's distant peak, before returning to continue their journey by rail.For tourists and itinerant visitors like myself, the ferry crossing is a charming novelty. For local people, however, it has long been a defining part of their identity. In his 1941 novel, Conversations in Sicily, the writer Elio Vittorini describes a group of fruit pickers congregating on the boat's deck, feasting on large chunks of local cheese and enjoying the view. As the narrator joins them, he is transported to being a boy; feeling the wind devouring the sea", while gazing out at the ruins along the two coasts", separated, poetically, across the water.Jamie Mackay is a writer and translator based in Florence Continue reading...

If the government is committed to the energy transition and a future made in Australia, the choice that must be made is clear

Michael Miller tells Senate misinformation inquiry platforming climate deniers and net zero critics part of great democracy and healthy debate'

We cannot claim to be of the right of politics yet shy away from targets that hold us to account, especially ones that were once the Liberals' own

Fossil fuel emissions have hit a record high while many nations have done too little to avert deadly global heatingThe world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found.Despite their promises, governments' new emission-cutting plans submitted for the Cop30 climate talks taking place in Brazil have done little to avert dangerous global heating for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Climate Action Tracker update. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. You can read the full Guardian coverage of the climate talks in Brazil hereHello comrades, this is Nina Lakhani in chilly New York City taking over the blog for the next few hours. Thanks very much to my colleague Matt Taylor in London Town who will be back in the hot seat on Friday morning.Leading climate activists and influencers have signed a letter criticising PR firm Edelman over its role at the Cop30 summit in Brazil. Continue reading...

Exclusive interview with ex-US vice-president at Cop30 also reveals his hope around much-maligned climate summitFear of being bullied by Donald Trump may have prompted Bill Gates to row back on the climate crisis, Al Gore has speculated, as he slammed the billionaire's new position as silly", and the US president for his anti-climate stance.Trump, the most corrupt president in American history", was badly damaging the US economy" by pulling away from renewable energy and promoting fossil fuels, the former US vice-president warned. Continue reading...

Stakeholders have spent months ironing out disagreements over how to distribute water from the sprawling basinState negotiators embroiled in an impasse over how to manage the imperiled Colorado River were unable to agree on a plan before a federally set deadline on Tuesday, thrusting deliberations deeper into uncertain territory.Stakeholders have spent months working to iron out contentious disagreements over how to distribute water from this sprawling basin - which supplies roughly 40 million people in seven states, 5.5m acres (8.9m hectares) of farmland, dozens of tribes and parts of Mexico - as the resources grow increasingly scarce. Continue reading...