The Guardian

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala says current incentives are distorting world trade and hampering fight against climate breakdown

Governments must start to distinguish between the good subsidies they need to fight the climate crisis and the bad ones that are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s trade chief has said.

Subsidies and other incentives to burn fossil fuels and encourage poor agricultural practices, amounting to about $1.7tn a year, are distorting world trade and hampering the fight against climate breakdown, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, told the Guardian.

A symbol of spring and rebirth, the robin is a favourite of gardeners and inspiration for poets and dreamers

What is it about the poem “Who killed Cock Robin?” It is so sad, and so coolly dark: a miniature drama played out in the shade of a single tree. The sparrow confesses right away, and nobody minds. The fly – “I, said the fly, with my little eye, I saw him die” – is a witness of whom no questions are asked. Everyone seems eager for the burial, eager to help, insincere in their mourning, “a-sighing and sobbing”.

Everything is small. The fish catching blood in his “little dish”, the rook playing parson with his “little book”. The death of a little bird, and a funeral for a bird the size, and almost the shape, of an orange, and weighing no more than an orange segment.

One of the electrons migrates a few nanometers away, where it feels a slightly different magnetic field than its partner. Depending on how the magnetic field alters the electron’s spin, different chemical reactions are produced. In theory, the products of many such reactions across a bird’s eye could create a picture of Earth’s magnetic field as a varying pattern of light and dark.

UN organizers allow groups that have obstructed fossil fuel regulations and other climate action to attend, watchdog finds

Influential industry trade groups, thinktanks and public relations agencies with a track record in climate denialism and misleading the public have been given access to the UN climate talks in Dubai, the Guardian can reveal.

Corporate Accountability, a transparency watchdog, has found that UN organizers greenlighted access to groups that have obstructed fossil fuel regulations and other climate action, giving them the same or greater access to the international negotiations as Indigenous communities, human rights groups and climate justice organizations.

It just goes round and round

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, says umbrella group of countries is united in saying draft agreement is too weak

A group of countries including Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and Japan have said they will “not be a co-signatory” to “death certificates” for small island states, and have demanded a stronger agreement at the Cop28 summit to deal with fossil fuels and address the climate crisis.

A statement delivered by the Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, on behalf of what’s known as the umbrella group of countries, came as tensions flared at the United Arab Emirates over the text of a draft deal proposed by the summit presidency.

UN organizers allow groups that have obstructed fossil fuel regulations and other climate action to attend, watchdog finds

More than 160 industry trade groups, thinktanks and public relations agencies with a track record in climate denialism and misleading the public have been given access to the UN climate talks in Dubai, the Guardian can reveal.

Corporate Accountability, a transparency watchdog, has found that UN organizers greenlighted access to groups that have obstructed fossil fuel regulations and other climate action, giving them the same or greater access to the international negotiations as Indigenous communities, human rights groups and climate justice organizations.

Researchers say better representation could elicit interest in lesser-known organisms and help conservation efforts

When Stefano Mammola and Francesco Ficetola went to an ecology conference in Prague in 2021, they met a scientist with an unusual complaint. Jennifer Anderson, an expert in aquatic fungi, lamented that the subject of her research was not available in emoji form.

“If you are doing the important work of trying to save the , you can use graphics to help you communicate this in a very relatable way,” said Anderson, a microbial ecologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “If you are working to save the aquatic fungi, you first must let people know that yes, aquatic fungi exist, then describe in words what they look like – usually not like mushrooms.”

Text now being considered by governments calls for ‘reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels’

• Cop28 live – latest updates

Oil-exporting countries will be called upon to reduce their production drastically in the coming decades, if a draft agreement published at the Cop28 UN summit on Monday is accepted.

The text avoids highly contentious calls for a “phase-out” or “phase-down” of fossil fuels, which have been the focus of deep disagreement among the more than 190 countries meeting in Dubai.

But populations are in long-term decline and El Niño is drying out wetland habitats

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Widespread floods and environmental flows have been a boon for waterbirds, with annual surveys in eastern Australia recording more than half a million birds.

But researchers say long-term declines in populations persist and the effects of El Niño and drying across eastern Australia are showing, with the total area of surveyed wetland habitat decreasing over the past year.

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Global heating, pollution, overfishing and falling water levels among factors hitting populations, finds IUCN red list study

Nearly a quarter of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of extinction due to global heating, overfishing and pollution, according to an expert assessment.

From the large-toothed Lake Turkana robber in Kenya to the Mekong giant catfish in south-east Asia, many of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk of disappearing, the first International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list assessment of the category has found.

Roman Abramovich’s yachts are said to emit more carbon than many small countries. This is unsustainable, and wrong

The rich gazed at their superyachts, and decided they were not enough. The new breed of megayachts, which are at least 70 metres (230ft) in length, may be the most expensive moveable assets ever created.

Roman Abramovich’s custom-designed Eclipse is estimated to be worth upwards of $800m. When he tires of its swimming pool, submarine and armoured plating, he can use one of its helipads to fly to the $475m Solaris, which he also owns. On the way he might, perhaps, glimpse the $600m Azzam, commissioned by the former president of the United Arab Emirates.

Chris Armstrong is a professor of political theory at the University of Southampton in the UK and the author of A Blue New Deal: Why We Need a New Politics for the Ocean and the forthcoming Global Justice and the Biodiversity Crisis: Conservation in a World of Inequality

Broadcaster and RSPCA president says moratorium needed as mortality rates jump, while activists question charity’s role in certifying farms

Naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham has called for a halt to the expansion of the Scottish salmon farming industry, as official figures suggest salmon mortality in the country’s farms hit record levels this year.

Packham, the president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), described the growing industry as “catastrophic” for fish welfare and Scotland’s environment.

The climate summit is heading into the final part of the negotations. We’ll be following events here all day

Simon Stiell, head of the UN climate change body in charge of Cop, has called out “tactical blockades” and “strategic landmines” as the talks enter their final phase. “We do not have a moment to lose in this crucial home stretch.”

Speaking to journalists on Monday morning, including my colleague Fiona Harvey, Stiell said the remaining areas for negotiation had “narrowed significantly” to leave just two issues. The first is how high the ambition to mitigate climate change is. The second is how willing countries are to back the transition with the support it needs.

Heat in Australia is 15C above December average and comes as Cop28 nears end

Parts of south-east Australia have been experiencing extreme heat over recent days. Temperatures hit 43.5C at Sydney airport on Saturday. This was the highest temperature recorded at this station since records began in 1929, and is about 15C above the December average. Authorities have issued several bushfire warnings and banned fires across many parts of New South Wales.

Temperatures will ease early this week across south and south-east Australia, but will intensify across northern, western and central parts as the week progresses. Here, temperatures could rise widely into the 40Cs by the weekend.

Top climate scientist says carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands vital to keeping temperature rise below 1.5C

• Cop28 summit: live updates

Human destruction of nature is pushing the planet to a point of no return, and even a phase-out of fossil fuels will not stave off climate breakdown unless we also protect the natural world, one of the world’s top climate scientists has warned.

Johan Rockström, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told the Guardian: “Even if we phase out all fossil fuels, if we do not get involved in nature, [the destruction of natural landscapes and habitats] can make us lose what we all have agreed on the safe future for humanity on Earth – that is, to stay within the 1.5C limit. It’s really decisive, that we get it right on nature.”

A podcast episode takes an unexpected turn when a snake makes an appearance in the roof above a guest who is speaking via video link. The episode is part of the podcast series Fresh Perspectives, produced by the Sydney-based consultancy The Strategy Group. Andrew 'Wardy' Ward of Regen Farmers Mutual is chatting about greenwashing when the two podcast hosts notice a snake dangling behind him from the roof of his porch. 'Oh my god!' gasps co-host Alycia Wolf. Wardy, however, is unfazed: 'It’s only a carpet python ... it's our rodent control officer,' he jokes, before continuing his talk

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• Guess who’s coming for dinner? The world’s second most venomous snake

At Cop28, Labor has made more progress on climate than the Coalition did in nearly a decade – but can this be true if Australia remains the world’s third biggest fossil fuel exporter?

Two years ago, when the former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison gave in to diplomatic pressure and turned up at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, the story of Australia’s response to the climate crisis was straightforward. There wasn’t one.

Morrison mustered a bit of half-hearted rhetoric and re-heated climate funding, and suffered through the fallout of French president Emmanuel Macron accusing him of lying, but did nothing to dispel the view that Australia had no meaningful climate policies and was a roadblock at the talks not far removed from the Russians and Saudis.

Australia’s climate minister says summit must aim to keep 1.5C goal alive so Pacific countries are not ‘swallowed by the seas’

The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has told nearly 200 countries at the Cop28 summit that the use of fossil fuels in energy production must end.

This came as the president of the Cop, Sultan Al Jaber, convened a majlis – a meeting in the traditional form of an elders’ conference in the United Arab Emirates – between all countries late on Sunday in an attempt to reach consensus on points of deadlock, including whether fossil fuels should be phased out or phased down.

Sir Keir Starmer has popular plans to green the economy but electoral support is the crucial precondition for to make them a reality

Politicians know they can’t win an argument without making it. Yet unfortunately that is what Sir Keir Starmer seems to believe. In 2021, the party earmarked £28bn a year for a green industrial strategy to rid the economy of its carbon addiction and create a wave of “clean jobs”. This summer, however, the spending was postponed to the second half of the next parliament. Then it was reported that it would take a full term to ultimately redeem the pledge. Last week, because of self-imposed fiscal rules, Sir Keir suggested it might not happen. This was unsettling, especially as Labour is miles ahead in the polls. Yet more disappointment is in store. On Tuesday, according to reports, the Labour leader will extol the virtues of small technocratic policies rather than big transformative ones.

Sir Keir is mistaken if he thinks he can avoid a fight by not turning up. British governments are unusually free to overhaul the country’s economy, but electoral support is the crucial precondition for such changes. Green policies won’t happen by themselves. This week, Cop28 will reach a climax, spotlighting the climate emergency. Inaction is not an option: relying on volatile gas prices would cost Britain double that of achieving 2050 net zero targets. Sir Keir knows that Labour spending will be caricatured as a “tax bombshell” by the Tories. Ministers hope to overwhelm facts with emotional force. But Labour should take heart that Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on climate targets in September, coupled with a conspiracy-laden assault on the opposition, fell flat with voters.

Sultan Al Jaber urges nations to be flexible as talks reach impasse over whether to phase out or phase down fossil fuels

Ministers and negotiators must come to the vital final meetings of Cop28 without prepared statements, without rigid red lines, and be prepared to compromise, the president of the UN climate summit has said.

Sultan Al Jaber, whose position is now pivotal to the talks as they enter their final days, on Sunday convened a majlis of all countries, a meeting in the traditional form of an elders’ conference in the United Arab Emirates.