The Guardian

With elections affecting half the world’s population this year, campaigners offer their views on the chances of real change

This year elections are taking place across the globe, covering almost half of the world’s population. It is also likely to be, yet again, the hottest year recorded as the climate crisis intensifies. The Guardian asked young climate activists around the world what they want from the elections and whether politics is working in the fight to halt global heating.

A decision from Unesco on giving the peat-rich Flow Country the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef is just weeks away

It is a land of mire, mist and midges that could soon be awarded a special status among the planet’s wild habitats. In a few weeks, Unesco is set to announce its decision on an application to allow the Flow Country in north Scotland to become a world heritage site.

Such a designation is only given to places of special cultural, historical or scientific significance and would put this remote region of perpetual dampness on the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids.

A climate activist was arrested at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris after sticking a blood-red poster over Monet's painting of poppy fields. The woman then revealed a T-shirt saying 'L'enfer' (hell). The action by a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) - a group of environmental activists and advocates of sustainable food production - was seen in a video posted to X. In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that 'this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place'

• Climate activist defaces Monet painting in Paris

On first day of predicted intense Atlantic hurricane season, Nature Conservancy urges action and warns against misinformation

Misinformation spread by climate deniers such as Florida’s extremist Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, increases the “vulnerability” of communities in the path of severe weather events, scientists are warning.

The message comes on Saturday, the first day of what experts fear could be one of the most intense and dangerous Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, threatening a summer of natural disasters across the US.

Approach replaces sugar with mashed pulp and husk of cocoa pod and uses less land and water

Healthier and more sustainable chocolate could hit store shelves after Swiss scientists and chocolatiers developed a recipe that swaps sugar for waste plant matter.

By mashing up the pulp and husk of a cocoa pod instead of just taking the beans, scientists have made a sweet and fibrous gel that could replace the sugar in chocolate, according to a report published in Nature Food.

Zoo welcomes 11 Humboldt chicks, its highest number in a decade, with previous arrivals named after crisps

In previous years Chester zoo’s new penguin chicks have been named after crisps – Frazzle, Wotsit – and local football club owners – Ryan, Rob – but the names p … p … p … picked this year are notably less frivolous.

“We’ve decided to go with plants,” said Zoe Sweetman, the penguins and parrots team manager at the zoo. Two of the spikier new arrivals have been named Nettle and Thistle while two others with “colourful personalities” have been named Daffodil and Tulip.

EPA says proposal to keep Hunter Valley Operations mines going to 2050 would release almost 30m tonnes of CO2

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The New South Wales environment watchdog says a plan to extend the life of a Hunter Valley coal-mining complex to 2050 is the “largest coal-mining proposal ever put forward” in the state.

Plans by Yancoal and Glencore to keep its joint-venture Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) mines in the Upper Hunter region going would see almost 30m tonnes of CO2 released, the EPA said in a letter to the state’s planning department.

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

Negative scientific and press reports on the efficacy of carbon credit projects has led to a ‘direct pullback in buyer investment’

The market for carbon offsets shrank dramatically last year, falling from $1.9bn (£1.5bn) in 2022 to $723m in 2023, a new report has found. The drop came after a series of scientific and media reports found many offsetting schemes do nothing to mitigate the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.

The research by Ecosystem Marketplace, a nonprofit initiative that collects data about the carbon market from brokers and traders, found the market had shrunk 61%.

Campaigners suspect block on new applications for at least two years was imposed to limit burden on water firms

The government has suspended all applications for bathing water status in waterways, delaying the cleanup of rivers and coastal waters for at least two years.

River campaigners fear the block on new applications to create bathing water areas, which are regularly tested for water quality, has been introduced to stop water companies facing huge resource implications to tackle poor water quality in new bathing areas.

For many on Ghoramara, the general election is about the climate crisis and survival. The island, 150km south of Kolkata and named the ‘sinking island’ by the media, has lost nearly half its area to soil erosion in the past two decades and could disappear if a solution is not found.

As voters across India cast their ballots on issues ranging from the cost of living to jobs and religion, politicians trying to win votes in Ghoramara need to put the climate crisis to the fore as the island’s dwindling population fight to save their homes from the sea amid rising water levels and increasingly fierce storms

Meeting WHO guidelines would avoid many cases of diseases and save the NHS millions, research shows

A study has revealed that cleaning up the air in the West Midlands could prevent the early deaths of about 2,000 people a year.

If the region were to meet World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for air pollution, it could also avoid 2,000 new asthma cases, 770 new cases of heart disease, 170 new lung cancers and 650 strokes annually, the study found.

Researchers say world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet demand forecasts to 2050 if net zero is reached

The world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet global energy demand forecasts to 2050 and governments should stop issuing new oil, gas and coal licences, according to a large study aimed at political leaders.

If governments deliver the changes promised in order to keep the world from breaching its climate targets no new fossil fuel projects will be needed, researchers at University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) said on Thursday.

Sudden cut in pollution in 2020 meant less shade from sun and was ‘substantial’ factor in record surface temperatures in 2023, study finds

The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big “termination shock” that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research.

Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%.

The Nationals MP is against RM Williams owner Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s renewables projects – so why wear Ariats?

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Earlier today, as I was reverse Google image searching a picture of Barnaby Joyce’s feet, I wondered if I was perhaps taking this too seriously.

The National party MP has been attending parliament without his habitual RM Williams boots in protest against the owner of the classic Australian fashion brand, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, whose company Squadron Energy is building wind and solar developments across New South Wales and Queensland, including in Joyce’s electorate of New England.

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The bipartisan proposal that would remediate farms affected by toxic PFAS contamination is gaining speed in Congress

The US may soon bail out farmers whose livelihoods were destroyed by toxic PFAS “forever chemical” contamination.

The proposal for a $500m fund aims to head off a crisis for the nation’s growers and is moving through Congress amid increasing evidence that PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge used as a cheap fertilizer alternative poisoned crops and livestock. Separately, around 4,000 farms nationwide have been contaminated by PFAS from neighboring military bases.

Analysis of the carbon offset projects used by top corporations including Delta, Gucci and ExxonMobil raises concerns around their emission cuts claims

Some of the world’s most profitable – and most polluting corporations – have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are “probably junk”, suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown, according to new analysis.

Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet, and Nestlé are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are “likely junk” or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog

Broadscale treatment under way after nests found at Nirimba in Queensland’s south-east

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Fire ants have been found on the Sunshine Coast as the super pest continues to spread beyond a containment zone in Queensland’s south-east corner.

It’s the latest in a series of so-called outlier detections of the hyper aggressive invasive species that Australia has been fighting to eradicate for decades.

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Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environment

• Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

When you picture the tech industry, you probably think of things that don’t exist in physical space, such as the apps and internet browser on your phone. But the infrastructure required to store all this information – the physical datacentres housed in business parks and city outskirts – consume massive amounts of energy. Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

This is a hugely environmentally destructive side to the tech industry. While it has played a big role in reaching net zero, giving us smart meters and efficient solar, it’s critical that we turn the spotlight on its environmental footprint. Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities. It is hardly news that the tech bubble’s self-glorification has obscured the uglier sides of this industry, from its proclivity for tax avoidance to its invasion of privacy and exploitation of our attention span. The industry’s environmental impact is a key issue, yet the companies that produce such models have stayed remarkably quiet about the amount of energy they consume – probably because they don’t want to spark our concern.

Mariana Mazzucato is professor of economics at UCL, and director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Exclusive: Five facilities named in documents tabled in NSW parliament defend practices, as independent experts question whether testing system is failing consumers

• Recycling fill sold in Sydney stores tests positive for asbestos
• Big waste companies broke rules on testing for contamination
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Facilities belonging to some of the leading commercial laboratory companies in Australia were among those that retested samples of landscaping products at the request of their waste company clients, after initial tests found contamination not compliant with NSW laws.

Guardian Australia revealed earlier this year the testing regime meant to limit toxic chemicals in landscaping material known as “recovered fines” had been compromised by the practice of waste companies asking private laboratories to retest samples until they passed.

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