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Records being broken for greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures and ocean heat

The world has never been closer to breaching the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating limit, even if only temporarily, the United Nations’ weather agency has warned.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Tuesday that 2023 was the hottest year on record by a wide margin. In a report on the climate, it found that records were “once again broken, and in some cases smashed” for key indicators such as greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.

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Neither the Tories nor Labour seem bothered by the climate mayhem that awaits us, but to save lives they must act

It’s the August bank holiday in 2050 and the UK is sweltering under the worst heatwave on record. Temperatures across much of England have topped 40C for eight days running: they peaked at 46C, and remain above 30C in cities and large towns at night. The country’s poorly insulated homes feel like furnaces, and thousands of people have resorted to camping out at night in the streets and local parks in a desperate attempt to find sleep. Hospital A&Es are overwhelmed and wards are flooded with patients, mostly old and vulnerable people who have succumbed to dehydration and heatstroke. Already, the death toll is estimated at more than 80,000.

No, this isn’t the beginning of a dystopian drama, but a snapshot of a mid-century heatwave unless we prepare for the increasingly extreme weather that will be driven by climate breakdown. To say that the government has no credible plan for this, as the UK Climate Change Committee did last week, is – if anything – an understatement. Britain is woefully underprepared for extreme weather, and in a number of key areas we are going backwards. About one in 15 of England’s most important flood defences were in a poor or very poor condition in 2022, up from roughly one in 25 just four years previously. The government’s Great British insulation scheme is operating at such a slow pace that it would take nearly 200 years to upgrade the country’s housing stock, while Labour has rowed back on its ambitious plans to insulate 19m homes within a decade.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, and the author of Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant’s Guide

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UK environmental watchdogs have announced investigations into arms of the governments in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland for possible failures to comply with bird protection laws, in a move seen as significant.

European carbon allowance prices continued to be driven by fluctuations in natural gas prices on Tuesday morning, briefly topping a technical resistance level as the TTF front month rose to a six-week high, before both contracts fell back into negative territory.

A group of nearly 100 former government officials and civil servants in India has published an open letter to the government, urging it to withdraw the recently published guidelines for awarding credits to forestry projects under the country’s Green Credit Scheme.

A new direct air capture (DAC) and sequestration facility is set to open in the US, claiming to capture and store 2 million tonnes of carbon annually and to achieve a tenfold cost reduction for the technology.

A developer of biochar-based carbon removal parks has secured €25 million in growth funding from a French impact investor to further its network across Europe.

The CSIRO says it only received $1m over the last ten years to combat the highly invasive pests despite pioneering research into their management

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Australia’s leading scientific research body received just $100,000 a year towards combatting fire ants, a Senate inquiry into the highly invasive pests has heard.

At the third and final session of public hearings for the Senate inquiry on Monday, the committee’s chair, Senator Matt Canavan, said some of the evidence he had heard had “freaked [him] out”.

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The carbon arm of an international commodities trader has partnered with one of Japan's largest gas suppliers to grow their offset portfolios, eyeing nature-based solutions in Asia.

A direct air capture (DAC) startup has partnered with a simulation company for the development of a digital twin, or digital model, of its planned real-world plants.

An insurance provider is entering the carbon insurance market with the launch of a new product to cover both the physical and political risks of buying voluntary carbon credits on a forward basis.

China saw thermal power generation in the first two months of 2024 continue to outpace the growth of total power output amid rosier economic figures, according to the latest government data.

The EU needs to develop a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategy and lay out a roadmap for carbon removals deployment from now to 2050 in order to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century, according to a climate non-profit.

A broader definition of blue carbon ecosystems could help fund conservation efforts by unlocking greater carbon credit supply, according to a study released this week.

In states with competition between retailers, the energy regulator is promising savings for most customers on the default plan. But it’s small change compared to price hikes. Here’s what to expect. Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

How can we expect people to care for the countryside if they are denied access to it? We must fight for our right to roam

When people ask me where I’m from, I wryly tell them “the middle of nowhere”. So, imagine my surprise when I saw that my old landlord and the remote place where I grew up were making national headlines over a court battle for the right to wild camp on Dartmoor.

Alexander Darwall bought the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor in 2011. Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is allowed, in designated areas, without permission from a landowner. Darwall successfully contested this right in court, arguing that the right to wild camp – as opposed to walking or picnicking – on the moors never existed. Then an appeal restored it. Now, he’s taking the case to the supreme court.

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Indonesia’s national carbon exchange has remained quiet in the first two months of this year, according to newly published data, but market sources believe the exchange will open itself up to international trade later this year.

There has been another step towards low-carbon fuels this week, as two groups signed agreements to develop e-fuels, or synthetic replicas of traditional fossil fuels made with captured CO2 and renewable energy.

Chevron and JX Nippon Gas have signed a non-binding agreement to look at capturing CO2 in Japan and sending it to Australia and other nearby nations for permanent sequestration.

Court of appeal’s removal of ‘consent’ defence means defendants on trial for criminal damage can no longer use it

It took a matter of minutes in the court of appeal, where demonstrators were strangely absent, for the dial to shift once more on the rights of protest in England and Wales.

The decision taken on Monday by the court of appeal to, in effect, find in favour of the attorney general, the Conservative government’s premier legal officer, has removed a defence for climate protesters that had been available on the statute books since 1971.

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