The Guardian

Internal emails show pressure from industry lobbyists and politicians led Trump-era agency to change position on aldicarb

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering approving a pesticide for use on Florida oranges and grapefruits despite the fact that agency scientists have repeatedly found the chemical does not meet safety standards designed to protect children’s health, internal agency records show.

EPA emails indicate how for years, agency scientists have wanted to deny new uses of aldicarb, but appear to have not done so because of persistent pressure from chemical industry lobbyists, politicians and political appointees.

This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

At annual yacht show, only a handful of customers said they were troubled by vessels’ disproportionate carbon footprint

The largest of the yachts in Monaco’s harbour were worth more than the annual GDP of some small island states. But few of the customers touring their decks seemed to care that buying the former would help drown the latter. “I don’t think about this yet,” said Elena Papernaya, an artist who had set her eyes on a mid-sized yacht, when asked if she worried about the damage it would do to the climate.

Kasper Hojgaard, a regional manager for an industrial company who charters yachts for a few weeks each year, said he did not consider climate change “at all” when doing so. His friend Lasse Jensen, a pension fund manager, nodded in agreement. “We are beginning to look a bit more into it, but it’s not playing a role.”

Toxic foam has been shown floating over the Yamuna River in Delhi amid India's annual battle with air pollution. In the winter months, wind speeds drop and cooling air traps pollutants from vehicles, industry and farmers burning agricultural waste. The foam on the river comes from untreated waste, according to a former adviser to the government. Delhi, home to about 33 million people, is regularly ranked the most polluted city in the world

• Delhi air pollution spikes to 100 times WHO health limit

Jets belonging to entertainers, CEOs, oligarchs and billionaires produce equivalent to emissions of almost 40,000 Britons

Private jets belonging to 200 celebrities, CEOs, oligarchs and billionaires have spent a combined total of 11 years in the air since the start of 2022.

The carbon footprint of all those flights – a jaw-dropping 44,739 journeys – would be the equivalent of the total emissions of almost 40,000 Britons.

Does being an effective agency mean helping sell more products or can it mean helping mitigate climate emergency?

When Bartle Bogle Hegarty won one of the advertising industry’s most coveted prizes – the Effectiveness award – for their amazing car-selling prowess, two executives from another company worked out that the resultant carbon emissions of the extra 132,700 Audis that BBH had managed to shift came to about 5.2m tonnes, roughly equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Uganda.

The work has been a lightning rod in an industry that is deeply divided over its role in the climate crisis. There is increasing agreement that although individual behaviour should not be the primary focus for change, some individuals’ behaviour – namely that of the world’s wealthiest people – has a much bigger impact not only on global emissions but also on broader economic and political trends. But how should the advertising and PR industries grapple with the overconsumption of the top 10%?

Amid the heat and humidity, energy bills in New Orleans are surging – but the options for low-income residents are severely limited

Darlene Jones spends most of her time holed up in the bedroom to minimize the amount of electricity she uses to cool and light her home in downtown New Orleans.

Air seeps out from the doors and windows of the 1890 one-bedroom shotgun house – and through the bashed-up floorboards and ceiling that Jones cannot afford to repair. She has wrapped foam around the leaky air-conditioning pipes, and taped handwritten signs on the front door above the metal letterbox that read “Please close the slot”.

The implications of policy are felt very differently depending on how well-off you are. It’s time for politicians to recognise this

Many of Rishi Sunak’s political decisions are baffling, but one that’s easy to understand is his recent rowing back from the UK’s climate commitments: he, like many creatures of Westminster, thinks working-class people don’t care much for climate action. This is a lazy stereotype and, predictably, did nothing for his poll numbers.

The simple truth is this: when it comes to the climate crisis, working-class people are often the first to spot the changes occurring because even slight fluctuations can make or break family finances. That doesn’t mean this is the first subject working-class people raise when a canvasser knocks at the door or a pollster asks, but it is there in the background when deciding who to trust with our futures.

Roger Harding is the founding director of Round our Way

Chris Bowen also says climate disaster fund will need to be bankrolled by broader-than-expected range of countries in speech ahead of Cop28

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Australia’s climate minister, Chris Bowen, says Pacific nations and other countries vulnerable to climate catastrophe should be the major beneficiaries of “loss and damage” funding, and a broader range of countries should bankroll the international effort along with the private sector.

Bowen used a speech to a foreign policy thinktank on Tuesday night to signal Australia’s position ahead of Cop28, the looming United Nations-led climate talks, which get under way in the United Arab Emirates later this month.

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Jealous Mpofu wins Tusk’s ranger of the year award for his work with a maligned and misunderstood species

When Jealous Mpofu was a boy, he overheard his father’s bosses talking negatively about painted dogs, wild African canines with distinct marble coats that are among the world’s most endangered species.

“They said they didn’t kill an animal, they grabbed the flesh. They said they were rough animals,” Mpofu said.

Nature Talks presents the results of the nature photographer of the year 2023 competition. Jacquie Matechuk, from Canada, is the winner in the contest, an initiative from the organisation also responsible for the annual Nature Talks photo festival in the Netherlands

Surfers Against Sewage finds 60% of representative sample of popular locations to be unsafe for swimming

The majority of popular inland bathing spots in the UK surveyed in a report have been found to be unsafe for swimming.

In a representative sample of popular swimming and water sports locations, 60% were found to have pollution at unsafe levels, the annual report from campaign group Surfers Against Sewage found.

Landmark finding in judicial review over management of Costa Beck river could force overhaul of government’s plans

The government and environment agency failed in their duty to restore and protect waterways from pollution, the high court has ruled in a significant case that could force an overhaul of the government’s plans.

Fish Legal and Pickering Fishery Association took the government to judicial review over its river basin management plan for the Costa Beck river in the Humber district, which had a reputation as one of the best fly fishing spots in the UK until a few years ago.

Sentences risk silencing public concerns about the environment, climate change rapporteur Ian Fry says

Long sentences handed to two Just Stop Oil protesters for scaling the M25 bridge over the Thames are a potential breach of international law and risk silencing public concerns about the environment, a UN expert has said.

In a strongly worded intervention, Ian Fry, the UN’s rapporteur for climate change and human rights, said he was “particularly concerned” about the sentences, which were “significantly more severe than previous sentences imposed for this type of offending in the past”.

Icelandic singer condemns ‘terrible suffering’ of salmon farming with proceeds from her new single with Rosalía going to activists

The Icelandic singer Björk has condemned industrial salmon farming in open pens as “extraordinarily cruel”, as she announced her debut song with the Catalan singer Rosalía, which will be available on Tuesday 21 November.

The pair will donate the proceeds of the single, a love song based on a recently recovered recording Björk made two decades ago, to activists opposing the controversial industry in Iceland.

Data shows baby boomers have highest emissions and London has lower footprint than rest of UK

• The great carbon divide: charting a climate chasm

Restaurants, pets and foreign holidays are among the reasons why the UK’s most well-off people rack up carbon footprints far greater than those on low incomes, according to data shared with the Guardian.

The biggest carbon divide is in aviation, with the richest 10% in the UK – the 6.7 million people paid more than £59,000 a year – causing more than six times more climate-heating emissions from flights than the poorest 10%. Spending on electrical items, homeware and furniture also contributes to the outsize impact of the wealthy, who splash out four times more on these goods.

Carbon emissions of richest 10% is up to 40 times bigger than poorest, and ignoring divide may make ending climate crisis impossible, experts say

• The great carbon divide: charting a climate chasm

The richest 10% of people in many countries cause up to 40 times more climate-heating carbon emissions than the poorest 10% of their fellow citizens, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

Failing to account for this huge divide when making policies to cut emissions can cause a backlash over the affordability of climate action, experts say.

In the 1970s, Graeme Pearman measured rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, briefing three prime ministers on what that meant for the planet. After decades leading Australia’s climate research, Pearman, now 82, speaks of the frustration that the science didn't lead to meaningful change.

This video is part of Weight of the World: a climate scientist's burden. The series features three pioneering Australian climate change scientists - Graeme Pearman, Lesley Hughes and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. Pearman was measuring CO2 in the atmosphere as long ago as 1971. Hughes is one of the first ecologists to warn that rising temperatures would push many species towards extinction. Hoegh-Guldberg’s research revealed the risk that global heating would have on the ocean’s richest ecosystems - coral reefs.

The series tells the story of how the three scientists made their discoveries, how they came under attack for their science and the personal toll it has taken on them. And importantly, how they stay hopeful.

‘We must start setting records on cutting emissions,’ UN boss says after temperature records obliterated in 2023

The world is on track for a “hellish” 3C of global heating, the UN has warned before the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week in the United Arab Emirates.

The report found that today’s carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C of heating would be reached this century.

I think people everywhere, even on juries, have had enough of our leaders’ failure to tackle the climate crisis

In 2021, I was arrested with eight other women for breaking the windows at HSBC’s headquarters in London. On Thursday, after just two hours of deliberation, a jury of our peers found all nine of us not guilty of nearly half a million pounds in criminal damage.

Although the three-week trial was the most gruelling experience of my life, I trusted the jury to acquit us for two reasons. First, I believe the human spirit is basically good and cooperative, and when given the chance we will make decisions that are compassionate and fair.

Gully Bujak worked with Extinction Rebellion for several years and is now a community organiser in Hull

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The 1% aren’t just the biggest climate wreckers, they also greatly influence how the world responds to the crisis

When you talk about the climate crisis, sooner or later someone is going to say that population is the issue and fret about the sheer number of humans now living on Earth. But population per se is not the problem, because the farmer in Bangladesh or the street vendor in Brazil doesn’t have nearly the impact of the venture capitalist in California or the petroleum oligarchs of Russia and the Middle East. The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%. The rich are bad for the Earth, and the richer they are the bigger their adverse impact (including the impact of money invested in banks, and stocks financing fossil fuels and other forms of climate destruction).

In other words, we are not all the same size. Billionaires loom large over our politics and environment in ways that are hard to understand without taking on the shocking scale of their wealth. That impact, both through their climate emissions and their manipulations of politics and public life means they are not at all like the rest of humanity. They are behemoths, and they mostly use their outsize power in ugly ways – both in how much they consume and how much they influence the world’s climate response.