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Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfire across the US, a new study shows, with extreme conditions once considered rare now occurring with disturbing frequency.

Leaders of the G7 group of developed economies are gathering on Thursday (June 13) for their annual meeting, with a host of global crises on the agenda to keep them busy.

The G7 summit starting on Thursday, just a few days after European elections, lays bare security issues and high-level geopolitics as the main obstacles towards phasing out fossil fuels and reaching the Paris climate goals.

The burden of transition on economically insecure voters must be eased via a more ambitious fiscal approach by governments

Following the European parliament elections of 2019, the newly elected president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told MEPs: “If there is one area where the world needs our leadership, it is on protecting our climate … We do not have a moment to waste. The faster Europe moves, the greater the advantage will be for our citizens, our competitiveness and our prosperity.”

Five years on, all that remains true, and the urgency of taking decisive action is even greater. Last week, the United Nations general secretary, António Guterres, warned that the world faced “climate crunch time”, referring to new data revealing that the crucial 1.5C threshold for global heating was breached over the past year. But the politics of climate action in Europe is lurching in the wrong direction at alarming speed.

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The European Commission will offer €1.2 billion in the second auction for green hydrogen projects, accounting for a quarter of the Innovation Fund's budget this year, the trade group Hydrogen Europe announced on Wednesday.

The party’s manifesto, which pledges to use a wealth tax to revitalise our public services, shows it can push Labour to raise its ambitions

All governments betray the hopes of their supporters. But Labour is getting its betrayal in early. By ruling out a wealth tax and other measures that could fund our collapsing public services and our increasingly desperate care and welfare needs; by failing to denounce the unfolding genocide in Gaza; by remaining silent about the curtailment of our rights to protest; by breaking its promises on everything from a national care service to the abolition of the House of Lords and a right to roam, Keir Starmer’s party appears to wear betrayal as a badge of honour. This country is desperate for change, but while Starmer mumbles the word in every sentence, he offers as little as he can get away with.

Why? Labour’s anticipatory betrayal is motivated by anticipatory compliance. This means avoiding conflict with billionaire-owned media, the financial, property and fossil fuel sectors, by giving them what they want before they ask. You could call this approach “political realism”. But the “realistic” result is a politics dominated by the sinister rich. Dysfunction and misrule are baked in.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Election results special. Join Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams on 5 July

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Peak global oil demand will be reached in 2030 amid a “unprecedented” glut of supply after investors were caught napping by the rush to adopt clean technologies, warned the International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday.

A removals registry has developed a protocol for biogenic carbon capture and sequestration (BCCS), with requirements on the sourcing of sustainable biomass, and a bioenergy producer signed on as the first supplier.

A regional partnership seeking to advance nature conservation efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean has drafted a new strategy to meet the ambitious goal of protecting and restoring 50 million hectares of land by 2030.

The arrival of a new Labour government would clear the way for Britain to link its emissions trading scheme with the EU’s within the next few years, pushing UK prices up to parity as soon as the intention is signalled and aligning the two markets over the longer term, experts said on Wednesday.

'Well-intentioned' initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) recommendations often fail to provide stakeholders with decision-useful information, as companies tend to highlight their sustainability successes rather than nature-related risks, found a study published on Monday.

Issuances of the lowest-quality credits have fallen by almost half so far this year as a total share of the market, although the grade continues to house the largest share of credits, according to a rating agency.

The chemical industry is calling for faster implementation of the European Green Deal after the 2024 EU Parliament elections, saying cheap and abundant renewable electricity will be the cornerstone of the industry’s ability to compete on the global stage in the 2030s.

The vessel, which sank off the coast of Canada in 1962, was used by the explorer on his final voyage to the continent

The wreck of the ship on which renowned Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton died has been found off the coast of Labrador, Canada, searchers have announced.

Locating the Quest – a schooner-rigged steamship which sank on a 1962 seal hunting voyage – represents a last link to the “heroic age of Antarctic exploration”, said search leader John Geiger.

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Selling all the biodiversity net gain (BNG) units from one large conservation project in England could take up to a decade, if they trade at all, with the current system unable to drive large-scale landscape recovery on its own, a land manager has said.

European carbon prices were marginally higher at midday on Wednesday as early weakness was erased by gains in natural gas, while the weekly Commitment of Traders data showed that the aggregate net short position among investment funds continued to grow amid an overall reduction in exposure.

Wreck hunters find the ship on which famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton made his final voyage.

New battery project next to one of Australia's oldest wind farms will be the first storage investment by the now Chinese owned company.

The post Construction begins on new big battery next to one of Australia’s oldest wind farms appeared first on RenewEconomy.

South Korea’s monthly CO2 permit auction on Wednesday was again oversubscribed, though the price outlook may remain bleak in the near term due to persistent low demand in the national carbon market.

Party has vowed to end sewage scandal if it wins power, but experts say it will have to act quickly and ambitiously

Since the UK’s general election was called, the Labour party has been seeking to capitalise on voters’ fury over the sewage filling England’s rivers and seas.

The debt-ridden, leaking, polluting water industry, owned largely by foreign investment firms, private equity and pension funds, has overseen decades of underinvestment and the large-scale dumping of raw sewage into rivers. It has become one of the touchstone issues of this election, with voters across the political spectrum angry at the polluting of waterways treasured by local communities. Groups have sprung up to look after rivers and lakes; protests pop up most weekends along the coast.

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