The Guardian

Stakes high as officials discuss summit’s key question of how much rich countries should pay for developing nations to cope with climate crisis and decarbonize their economies

In response to the latest text on climate finance, Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International Global Public Finance Manager, said it was “a mixed bag with good, bad and ugly options.”

“Rich countries now have a last chance to step up to pay the climate debt they owe to the Global South and unlock a fair and funded fossil fuel phaseout, while barring dangerous distractions. Wealthy nations must support delivering the trillions urgently needed in public finance with the majority provided debt-free, which is currently on the table.”

Speaking at a press conference in Baku this morning, Hoekstra was asked for reaction to the lack of a clear figure on the climate finance - which currently just has an “X” for the target on the new collective quantified goal (NCQG).

“It is clearly unacceptable as it stands,” said Hoekstra, giving little else away.

Exclusive: Trail would help region with few areas where people can walk in countryside, report says

A new trail along the east coast of England should be created, a Tory thinktank has said, because farmland is preventing those who live there from having access to nature.

A report from Onward has found that in most rural areas, people enjoy extensive rights-of-way networks. But across the east of England, there are many areas where people have barely anywhere they are allowed to walk in the countryside. This, the report says, is because of large areas of high-grade farmland in that area, but also because Lincolnshire has the largest backlog for recognition of historical but unrecorded rights of way, with more than 450 outstanding applications.

Despite a diplomatic push from Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese, Turkey won’t back down on its bid to host Cop31

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Australia’s plan to host a major UN climate summit in 2026 has hit a Turkish roadblock. It is unclear how long it will last.

The Albanese government had expected that its bid to co-host the Cop31 summit in partnership with Pacific island nations – a Labor promise since before it won power in 2022 – would be agreed by now, as the UN climate talks in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku approach their final stages.

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As Cop29 in Azerbaijan reaches final stages, countries try to shore up support for conference where question of limiting global heating will be key

Australia is locked in a standoff with Turkey over which will host vital UN climate talks in 2026, where the question of whether the world can limit global heating in line with scientific advice is likely to be decided.

Australia’s government wants to host the summit in partnership with Pacific nations, which are among the countries most threatened by climate breakdown.

Ukraine's environmental protection minister, Svitlana Grynchuk, and the Palestinian chair for the environmental quality authority, Nisreen Tamimi, raised the alarm on the ecological impact of war in their countries and beyond. Grynchuk said Russia's 'unlawful reporting' of its carbon emissions on Ukrainian territory was undermining the integrity of the Paris agreement. Tamimi said the rebuilding effort in Gaza would release an estimated 30m tonnes of carbon dioxide

• Cop29 live: campaigners say talks are ‘reaching point of real emotion’

OECD complaint alleges top firm has increased investments in companies implicated in environmental devastation

BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset management company, faces a complaint at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for allegedly contributing to environmental and human rights abuses around the world through its investments in agribusiness.

Friends of the Earth US and the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil accuse BlackRock of increasing investments in companies that have been implicated in the devastation of the Amazon and other major forests despite warnings that this is destabilising the global climate, damaging ecosystems and violating the rights of traditional communities.

Chris Uhlmann says power costs are soaring while renewables are falling short, but do the pair have anything in common?

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What is “The Real Cost of Net Zero” asked political journalist Chris Uhlmann this week, after weeks of trailing his new documentary on Sky News Australia.

Uhlmann is no fan of Australia’s shift to renewables, and in a preview published in the Australian said politicians and governments “pushing ambitious renewables targets” were “breathtakingly, stunningly energy illiterate.”

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Graham Readfearn is Guardian Australia’s environment and climate correspondent

The deputy prime minister addressed the controversy over Labour's plan to extend inheritance tax to some farms after hundreds of people attended a rally outside Downing Street a day before. The Conservative party's Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, told Rayner he had spoken to farmers across the country who were outraged. Rayner responded by insisting the government was 'absolutely committed' to British farmers and had added £5bn to the farming budget

• UK politics live – latest updates

• Starmer denies mounting class war as farmers claim they have been ‘betrayed’

Researchers found no difference in the diversity of species in urban meadows compared with those in rural settings

Small patches of wildflowers sown in cities can be a good substitute for a natural meadow, according to a study which showed butterflies, bees and hoverflies like them just as much.

Councils are increasingly making space for wildflower meadows in cities in a bid to tackle insect decline, but their role in helping pollinating insects was unclear. Researchers working in the Polish city of Warsaw wanted to find out if these efforts were producing good results.

Scheme has collected a fraction of the waste it set out to handle and is struggling with broken machinery and poor finances

• Five firms in plastic pollution alliance ‘made 1,000 times more waste than they saved’

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) makes high-profile claims about the projects around the world it supports in the pursuit of clearing up plastic waste leaching into the environment.

It works with partner organisations in developing countries to support community initiatives to collect and recycle plastic waste.

Only 2.5% of more than 300,000 farms were inspected at least once in 2022 and 2023, researchers find

There is just one local authority inspector for every 878 farms in England, Scotland and Wales, according to a report, which says that the current welfare system is continuing to fail animals.

Researchers for the Animal Law Foundation found that only 2.5% of the more than 300,000 UK farms were inspected at least once in 2022 and 2023, a marginal decrease from 2018-21 when Covid-19 might be expected to have affected inspection rates.

Day nine of the climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, with progress slow for negotiators

Activists have been out at the conference in Baku this morning trying to put pressure on negotiators to agree a deal on climate finance.

Alliance of Champions calls on governments and financial institutions at COP29 to prioritise climate finance for food systems

In Brazil, a National Program for Productive Forests (Programa Nacional de Florestas Produtivas) to promote sustainable agroforestry practices, enhance food production, generate employment, and restore degraded areas. The program’s initial phase targets the state of Pará and supports Brazil’s wider commitments to restore 12 million hectares by 2030 and create up to 2.5 million jobs.

In Cambodia, the deployment of 1,600 agriculture officers in agricultural communes across the country, developing modern agricultural cooperatives to improve access to markets, capital and water, whilst also increasing the economic efficiency and sustainability of smallholders;

In Norway, an annual policy dialogue with farming unions to negotiate policy measures that are tailored to farmers’ needs, delivering a ‘bottom up’ participatory approach that is designed to deliver against the country’s national and international commitments;

In Rwanda, a commitment by 2030 to halve per capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses in farm production and along supply chains, including post-harvest losses.

In Sierra Leone, the implementation of the national flagship ‘Feed Salone’ strategy is sustainably driving local food production by making agriculture more competitive for investment, decreasing food imports and supporting smallholder farmers, especially women and youth.

From my perspective as a 12-year-old, it’s devastating that the protest is getting such a negative reaction from the NSW government

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All year, I have been looking forward to the People’s Blockade of the Newcastle coal port. I’ve been so excited to see the colourful array of kayaks and get to swim and paddle in the harbour with my friends to make our voices heard, and let the government know that we need to do everything we can right now to stop the climate crisis.

I know that Rising Tide has been working incredibly hard to make the blockade a fun and safe experience for everyone, but it feels like instead of listening to our concern about the climate crisis, the state government is doing everything they can to try to stop our “protestival” from going ahead.

Frankie Kelly is a 12-year-old climate activist with Rising Tide from Newcastle

Australia and Turkey are both lobbying to host Cop31, the world's annual United Nations climate change negotiations planned for 2026. The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said Australia wants to co-host Cop31 'in partnership with our Pacific family'. Bowen also announced a $50m contribution to loss and damage caused by the climate crisis.

• Paris agreement is working, Australian minister tells Cop29, but much deeper cuts needed by 2035

• Chris Bowen makes last-minute diplomatic stop in Turkey as Australia ramps up bid to host Cop31

Poor country delegates say classifications that date back to 1992 are obsolete and two countries ‘should be contributing’

China and India should no longer be treated as developing countries in the same way as some of the poorest African nations are, according to a growing number of poor country delegates at the Cop29 UN climate talks.

China should take on some additional responsibility for providing financial help to the poorest and most vulnerable, several delegates told the Guardian. India should not be eligible for receiving financial help as it has no trouble attracting investment, some said.

Exclusive: Leaders warn cost savings will lead to mass redundancies and that spaces could become ‘paper parks’

England’s national parks face a 12% real-terms cut to their budget which would lead to mass redundancies of wardens and the closure of visitor centres and other facilities, park leaders have warned.

The chief executives told the Guardian that soon the spaces would become “paper parks” designated by a “brown sign on the motorway” and they will have to “turn the lights off, close the doors and put up closed signs” if the cuts go ahead.

Chris Bowen also pledges A$50m to a fund to help the world’s most vulnerable people repair the damage from climate breakdown

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The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has declared the landmark Paris agreement “is working” as it had brought the world back from “the brink of catastrophic 4C warming”, but argued countries must set the most ambitious emissions targets possible for 2035 to limit worsening global heating.

Giving Australia’s national statement on the conference floor at the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan, he also pledged A$50m (US$32.5m) towards a global loss and damage fund to help the world’s most vulnerable people to repair the damage from climate breakdown.

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Thousands of farmers from across the UK protested in central London against changes in the 2024 budget that will mean some farmers paying inheritance tax. Farmers were previously exempt. The farmers, who were joined by Jeremy Clarkson and seveal MPs, fear the new levy will affect food prices and harm their businesses

An update on our progress from the Guardian’s head of sustainability

• The Guardian environment pledge 2024
• Support urgent, independent climate journalism today

Five years ago the Guardian made a pledge that we would “play a part, both in our journalism and in our own organisation, to address the climate emergency” with our first annual environment pledge. That commitment reflected our long history of environment reporting and our view that individual companies had to take greater responsibility for their impact on the natural world. We wanted to demonstrate to readers that we were taking the action that our journalism showed was so necessary, and to be transparent about our progress. Today we publish the 2024 pledge.

Since then we have worked hard to measure and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to understand our impact on nature and to share our results openly with readers. In our latest sustainability report, published last month, we show that our emissions have fallen by 43% since 2020, putting us well on track to achieve our goal of a 67% cut by 2030.

Nearly 40% of food sector lobbyists have travelled to Baku as part of countries’ delegations

• Cop29 climate summit – live updates

Hundreds of lobbyists for industrial agriculture are attending the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, analysis shows.

They include representatives from some of the world’s largest agribusiness companies including the Brazilian meatpacker JBS, the animal pharmaceuticals company Elanco, and the food giant PepsiCo, as well as trade groups representing the food sector.