The Guardian

Prime minister unveils plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on visit to Scotland

Rishi Sunak has pledged to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves as he revealed a new round of intensive North Sea drilling, which experts said could be catastrophic for the climate.

Unveiling a plan to authorise more than 100 new North Sea licences on a visit to north-east Scotland, the prime minister also indicated he would approve drilling at the UK’s largest untapped reserves in the Rosebank field, which hold 500m barrels of oil.

US tree nurseries do not grow enough trees and lack the plant species diversity to meet ambitious plans, research says

In an effort to slash carbon emissions and provide relief from extreme heat, governments across the nation and globally have pledged to plant trees. But the US is not equipped with the tree seedlings to furnish its own plans, according to a new study.

US tree nurseries do not grow nearly enough trees to bring ambitious planting schemes to fruition, and they also lack the plant species diversity those plans require, according to research published in the journal Bioscience on Monday,

Ministers urged to learn from success of single-use bag fee, amid criticism that other measures have been delayed

Environmental campaigners have called on the government to learn from its own successes after official figures showed the use of single-use supermarket plastic bags had fallen 98% since retailers in England began charging for them in 2015.

Annual distribution of plastic carrier bags by seven leading grocery chains plummeted from 7.6bn in 2014 to 133m last year, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said on Monday.

The carousel of changing Tory prime ministers made the latest seem moderate. Now, with his eagerness to trash green policies, we can see he is anything but

I had a premonition that Rishi Sunak was about to do something deeply ungreen. I didn’t know exactly what, and definitely couldn’t have named which oil and gas licences he wanted to issue, but I knew that, whatever it was, it would spell the end of our commitment to net zero. I figured it would shift our international alignment away from the countries taking the climate crisis seriously, because it’s right in front of them and they are not psychopaths, towards the countries strutting their indifference to it, for the complicated but demonstrable political mileage in the message: “Follow me to hell – it’ll be fun there.”

It was written right there in his holiday house. Why would a British prime minister have a second home in California? It’s such a forceful statement – I don’t care how rich I look, I don’t care how much I fly, I don’t care what eco-nerds think – and so unforced. He could have sold it, waited till he was no longer the prime minister – he must have known it wouldn’t be for ever – and bought a bigger one.

The UK prime minister visited Aberdeenshire on Monday to announce more than 100 new licences for drilling oil and gas in the North Sea. Rishi Sunak insisted the announcement was 'entirely consistent with our plan to get to net zero', adding that domestic oil and gas saved 'two, three, four times the amount of carbon emissions' of 'shipping it from halfway round the world'. Environmental groups said the licences would obliterate the UK's climate commitments. Jess Ralston from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said it would jeopardise the UK's international standing on the climate emergency, adding that the government would export oil and gas 'to the highest bidder'

• New North Sea oil and gas licences will send ‘wrecking ball’ through climate commitments

UN scientific advisors stressed the reef was under ‘serious threat’ in a report detailing progress on protecting the World Heritage site from the climate crisis

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UN scientific advisors have recommended the Great Barrier Reef not be placed on a list of World Heritage sites “in danger” but stressed the planet’s biggest coral reef system remains under “serious threat” from global heating and water pollution.

Unesco said in a report that the Australian government had taken positive steps to protect the reef since a UN monitoring mission visited Queensland in March last year.

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Lawyers for Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker had tried to challenge ‘extraordinary length’ of sentences

Two Just Stop Oil protesters who scaled the bridge at the Dartford crossing, closing it to traffic for more than a day and a half, have been refused permission to appeal against their sentences.

Morgan Trowland was jailed for three years and Marcus Decker for two years and seven months after they used ropes to climb the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, which links the M25 in Essex and Kent, last October, causing long traffic jams.

Dartmoor National Park Authority had appealed against January high court ruling that outlawed practice

Wild camping is once again allowed on Dartmoor after the national park won a successful appeal against a ruling in a case brought by a wealthy landowner.

Camping had been assumed to be allowed under the Dartmoor Commons Act since 1985, until a judge ruled otherwise in January. It was the only place in England such an activity was allowed without requiring permission from a landowner.

Consensus on tackling the climate crisis is what’s needed now – and direct action against CO2 must be the next move

For as long as the United Kingdom needs to use oil and gas, we should be making an effort to capture any resulting CO2 and store it. That clearly makes sense. It also makes sense to produce our own oil and gas, so we are less beholden to exporters (though of course ours, too, would be sold on the international markets).

So far, so good for Rishi Sunak’s twofold announcement today in Scotland. But it would be helpful if he did not muddy these waters by using them to score political points against Labour in the run-up to an election campaign. What we desperately need now, as we confront the climate crisis, is agreement on a way forward. Bringing party politics into it will only hinder progress.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Two people have reportedly been killed by severe flooding that has engulfed parts of Beijing after Typhoon Doksuri struck the Chinese capital. More than 31,000 people had been evacuated from the city as heavy rain continued to fall there, and in Hebei, Tianjin and eastern Shanxi, as the typhoon dissipated over northern China

• China: 31,000 forced to flee as Typhoon Doksuri brings heavy rains

The PM is misguided to focus so strongly on Ulez and popular low-traffic schemes. Keir Starmer should know better, too

Isn’t it extraordinary that the Tories scent blood over that most prosaic of innovations, the ponderously named low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) – and yet the idea that a few bollards and barriers strewn across residential areas should still become their main line of electoral attack is just further proof that the Tory government has abandoned any attempt to demonstrate serious intent.

Let’s be clear. There is precious little blood to be drawn in LTNs. This is a niche concern, affecting a very small percentage of the population, of whom only a minority are opposed. Moreover, as with the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez), the issue that has triggered this renewed interest in LTNs, it is the Tories who originally encouraged the concept by persuading and funding councils to introduce them during the pandemic. There is, too, an irony in the fact that the “pro-motorist” campaign against LTNs, previously articulated by the transport secretary, Mark Harper, is now being spearheaded by a prime minister whose default transport mode is a helicopter.

The Canadian town of Osoyoos has been ordered to evacuate after a wildfire crossed the border from the US state of Washington. Firefighters are using water cannons from planes to try to control the blaze, which local authorities estimate to be 885 hectares (2,200 acres) in size

PM claims UK fossil fuel projects key to meeting net zero aim, contradicting much climate science

• Rishi Sunak to use Scottish trip to attack Labour stance on North Sea oil

Rishi Sunak has announced the approval of about 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences, claiming the move would help the UK reach its target of meeting net zero by 2050.

Making a visit to Aberdeenshire on Monday, the prime minister stressed his desire to maintain UK fossil fuel exploration, a key political dividing line with Labour, which has said it will stop any new North Sea drilling if it comes into power.

The developed world needs to be shocked out of its complacency about our warming world, and the unexpected effects that will follow

A surreal video filmed by a tourist in “the most perfect location in Greece” last week, posted to show how “a weekend trip turned into survival mode in 24 hours”, could easily pass for a TV climate crisis awareness-raising campaign. It brings to mind two harrowing adverts released by Save the Children in 2014 and 2016, showing what life would look like for a British girl if war came to our shores and she became a refugee.

The brief Greece video unwittingly follows the same script of rapid unravelling: an idyllic waterside scene is instantly transformed, overshadowed by looming fire and smoke, then abandoned for boats, buses and waiting holding pens as hundreds of tired and bewildered people seek shelter and fail to secure flights out.

Concerns over water quality have discouraged a quarter of summer bathers from taking the plunge

Almost a quarter of the UK’s sea swimmers may not take a dip in the ocean this year because of sewage dumping by water companies, according to a poll.

Sewage was dumped into waters near England’s most celebrated beaches for nearly 8,500 hours last year, analysis shows. A separate review earlier this year found there were 1,504 discharges in 2022 on beaches supposed to be free from such pollution.

Offshore wind power could kickstart an economic renaissance in the west of Britain

David Lloyd George would no doubt have approved of the collaboration agreement signed this month by Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, and Linda Taylor, the leader of Cornwall council. In 1910, Britain’s only Welsh prime minister told a Falmouth crowd that Wales and Cornwall shared “the same Celtic passion for liberty”. These days, they also share common challenges and – in the field of renewable energy – transformative new prospects.

Later this year, a bidding process will begin for leases to build enough floating windfarms in the Celtic Sea to power 3m homes by 2035. Longer term, the hope is to generate six times that output from an area off the north Cornwall and south Wales coasts. Investment in wind has hitherto focused on the North Sea, exploiting existing infrastructure associated with oil and gas. But developments in offshore technologies have dramatically expanded the economic horizon at Europe’s western edge. As Mr Drakeford put it in a joint press conference with Ms Taylor: “Where our geography has been against us in many ways for economic development, now suddenly being on the edge is an advantage in terms of wind and marine energy.”

They are an antidote to the isolation and smallness of modern life – yet the YHA is being forced to sell off at least 20

Just over a month ago, a news story broke that spoke volumes about our crisis-ridden times, and the great wealth sitting undisturbed while some of our most vital organisations and institutions find themselves in dire financial straits.

It also took its place among a range of developments – from our polluted rivers, to the ongoing controversy about the legality of camping on Dartmoor – which highlight how the opportunity to enjoy green and open spaces is being spoiled, restricted and neglected. In this instance, though, beyond coverage in the Guardian and Telegraph, and a brief flurry of noise on social media, what was afoot seemed to attract very little attention at all.

US and UK must use financial firepower of the state to put economies on a saner course

Like many other politicians, Joe Biden talks a good game about the need to tackle global heating. Climate change is an “existential threat”, the US president said last week, as America sizzled amid record-breaking temperatures.

Biden had to do something in response to what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, described as the boiling of the planet. The White House announced a series of measures – such as improved access to drinking water and planting more trees – in response to what has been the hottest month on record.

Rishi Sunak needs to understand that investing in green initiatives is a lot cheaper than flying all his hedge fund manager mates to Mars

It’s 2am on Thursday. Wildfires are burning in Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Portugal, Croatia and Algeria. British tourist climate refugees are, ironically, being rescued by friendly locals in small boats. Stop the boats! No! Not those boats! The other ones! The ones with brown people in them!

But the main environmental news in the past few weeks has not been about the Giveaway Package Holiday Dante’s Inferno Supa-Deals. Instead, we learn that British political parties are rethinking their commitment to green policies. And all because Labour somehow lost Uxbridge, by a narrow margin, to a Conservative party so corrupt that it is considering setting up an amnesty bucket at the entrance to parliament, where those on the right of the house can vomit out their consciences before taking their seats.

Basic Lee tour dates are here. A fun-size ™ ® version of the show is at the Stand’s New Town theatre, Edinburgh, from 11 to 20 August

This was always going to happen. There was always going to be a moment when the seemingly dry question of decarbonisation became a dominant – the dominant – question in British politics; a moment when the government and opposition would have to genuinely address a question that was no longer abstract, no longer about measures to take in distant decades to prevent climate impacts in distant lands. Are we actually going to clean up our economy, and if we are, then who’s going to pay for it?

Some world leaders understand the moment we’re in and are acting accordingly – to defend a global climate that allows humans to prosper, but also to ensure their economies prosper this century. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest single investment of money into decarbonisation ever attempted, and the consequences are scaring European policymakers witless. The White House has made a huge intervention in the US economy in an effort to ensure America, not China, dominates technologies this century.