The Guardian

Renowned for clean-energy tech, the billionaire seems to be at one now with super-emitters and far-right global climate deniers

Elon Musk was once lauded as a sort of green Tony Stark – the genius inventor who leads a double life as superhero Iron Man – for single-handedly tackling the climate crisis one Tesla at a time, helping to forge a clean energy future and pushing for new taxes to drive down fossil fuel use.

But the climate credentials of the world’s richest person have become clouded by his embrace of rightwing politicians, some of whom dismiss global heating, as well as by his management of X, formerly known as Twitter, during which many climate scientists have fled the platform amid a proliferation of misinformation about the climate crisis.

Research shows impact from lifestyles and investments of likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk

• Introduction: the great carbon divide
• Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%

Twelve of the world’s wealthiest billionaires produce more greenhouse gas emissions from their yachts, private jets, mansions and financial investments than the annual energy emissions of 2m homes, research shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.

The tycoons include the Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the tech billionaires Bill Gates, Larry Page and Michael Dell, the inventor and social media company owner Elon Musk and the Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim.

‘Polluter elite’ are plundering the planet to point of destruction, says Oxfam after comprehensive study of climate inequality

• Introduction: the great carbon divide
• Twelve billionaires’ emissions equal to fuelling 2.1m homes

The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency, a report says.

The most comprehensive study of global climate inequality ever undertaken shows that this elite group, made up of 77 million people including billionaires, millionaires and those paid more than US$140,000 (£112,500) a year, accounted for 16% of all CO2 emissions in 2019 – enough to cause more than a million excess deaths due to heat, according to the report.

‘My hope is that the viewer will pause, slow down and take notice. Pay attention to the small, magical things that are happening within each one of the images on these pages and find your own place within them. There we can meet in silence—be still, and watch with wonder.’ - Palani Mohan palanimohan.com.

The book Watch in Wonder is published by Hong Kong University press and the images are on display at the Blue Lotus gallery, Hong Kong, 17 November till 10 December 2023.

Earlier this year, the Norwegian artist and photographer Tine Poppe stumbled across a Ted Talk about the environmental impact of the cut flowers industry. In her series Gilded Lilies she sets these flowers against scenery around the world. ‘The backdrops create an illusion of the flowers having been documented in their natural habitat,’ she says, ‘but the viewer will notice that something is off at a second glance.’ The flowers in the portraits are genetically engineered examples of their species, grown in industrial scale greenhouses and transported on long-haul flights. ‘I hope to convey a sense of our planet’s mortality,’ she says.

• See more at Tine Poppe’s Instagram profile

Many of the chemicals being spread as sewage sludge are untested or can’t be assessed. That’s why I’m suing for answers

It’s an experiment with 8 billion test subjects, no controls and no endpoint. What happens when you release thousands of novel chemicals, most of which have not been tested for their impacts on human health or ecosystems, into a living planet? What are the effects on the development of foetuses, on human brains, other organs, immune systems, cancer rates, fertility? What are they doing to other species and to Earth systems? We seem determined to find out the hard way.

The gap between our actions and our knowledge is astounding. Of the 350,000 registered synthetic chemicals, about a third are impossible to assess, as their composition is either “confidential” or “ambiguously described”. For most of the rest, deployment comes first, testing later. For instance, the health and environmental impacts of 80% of the chemicals registered in the European Union have yet to be assessed. And the EU is as good as it gets. Our own government, as one of the benefits of Brexit, has just decided to downgrade the safety information chemical companies have to provide to an “irreducible minimum”.

Rules, still subject to formal approval, stop exports to non-OECD countries and limit them elsewhere

The EU has struck a deal to stop ships of waste plastic landing in ports of poor countries.

European lawmakers and member states agreed on Friday to ban exports of plastic rubbish to countries outside the OECD group of mostly rich countries from the middle of 2026. The deal comes as diplomats meet in Nairobi, Kenya, to hammer out a global treaty on plastic pollution.

Charges said to be needed to prevent UK companies being undercut by overseas manufacturers

The prospect of higher taxes is not usually viewed with joy by British businesses, or Conservative MPs – but when it comes to carbon, that is precisely what many are asking for.

A growing number of manufacturers, Tory MPs and experts are calling for charges to be levied on the carbon emissions associated with imports. They believe the levy is needed to create a level playing field that would enable UK companies to invest in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, without finding themselves undercut by lower-cost but higher-carbon imports from overseas.

Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably ‘dramatic’ undercount because ‘forever chemical’ waste is unregulated in US

US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS “forever chemical” waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around disposal sites, a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data finds.

The 60m pounds estimate is likely to be a “dramatic” undercount because PFAS waste is unregulated in the US and companies are not required to record its disposal, the paper’s author, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer), wrote.

Seafood companies and retailers threaten to boycott north-east Atlantic catch after two-decade failure to agree sustainable quotas

A coalition of British seafood companies and retailers, including Young’s, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Waitrose, has condemned the “collective failure” of the UK, Norway and other states to reach agreement on the sustainable fishing of mackerel in the north-east Atlantic.

Lack of political agreement over a decade has led to an “overfishing disaster of potentially epic proportions”, conservationists say, leading to 44% more fish being caught than is sustainable.

Directive punishes most serious cases of environmental damage, including habitat loss and illegal logging

The European Union has become the first international body to criminalise wide-scale environmental damage “comparable to ecocide”.

Late on Thursday, lawmakers agreed an update to the bloc’s environmental crime directive punishing the most serious cases of ecosystem destruction, including habitat loss and illegal logging, with tougher penalties.

Hundreds of school students marched their way to Tanya Plibersek’s office with thousands protesting in Melbourne

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Nirvana Talukder didn’t go to school on Friday – but she says she was thinking about her future.

The 16-year-old was among hundreds of school students who marched their way to federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s office in Surry Hills, Sydney, calling for action on climate change. They joined thousands of students across Australia who took Friday off as part of the School Strike 4 Climate.

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

From the reaction to Ulez in London to heat pumps in Germany, eco-policies are still too often felt as sanctions on working people

It began with a petition. In May 2018, Priscillia Ludosky, a gently spoken French-Martinique small-business owner who sold natural cosmetic products, launched a call on Change.org for lower prices on petrol at the pumps. It gathered steam and she was contacted by Eric Drouet, a lorry driver. Together they organised a protest against a carbon tax on petrol that was due to be implemented the following year (notably, this was not long after Emmanuel Macron cut taxes for the ultra-rich). The call was eventually answered by hundreds of thousands of people across France, in rural areas and cities. The gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement was born.

Its participants are now celebrating the fifth anniversary of a movement that politicised many people across France, uniting them in rage at the “president of the rich”. I remember the first protest in Troyes in the Champagne region, where I was living at the time. I was taken aback by how angry people were as they banged at the gates of the town hall in their hi-vis jackets, venting their frustration at the daily struggles of life in post-2008 France, where average disposable incomes had dropped over several years. French protests are always lively, but as the journalist John Lichfield observed, “the white-hot anger” of the gilets jaunes was “something new and different”. As it turned out, Macron was surprised too. He abandoned the tax after just over three weeks of protest, leaving the French political class in total shock at what had just happened.

As officials prepare to gather in Nairobi, Kenya, for the third stage of talks on a UN plastic pollution treaty, new photos show the scale of the waste problem less than 8 miles from the UN Environment Programme building where the talks will take place. Nairobi’s Dandora dump site is one of the largest in Africa

Improvement targets for horticulture and poultry reduced after lobbying from National Farmers’ Union

The UK government has weakened energy efficiency targets for farmers after lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) had proposed a 40.9% energy efficiency improvement target for horticulture and a 12% target for poultry in order to cut the carbon footprint of the farming sector and reduce the reliance on fossil fuels to heat greenhouses and sheds.

Exclusive: Fields run by climate summit host have burned gas near daily despite 20-year-old pledge, satellite monitoring reveals

State-run oil and gas fields in the United Arab Emirates have been flaring gas virtually daily despite having committed 20 years ago to a policy of zero routine flaring, the Guardian can reveal.

The UAE is hosting the UN Cop28 summit, which starts on 30 November, and Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the state oil company Adnoc, will preside over the international negotiations to urgently tackle the climate crisis.

There is an unprecedented global swing towards solar and wind power under way

If you’re searching for some hope on the climate crisis before the Cop28 UN meeting in Dubai this month, try this: China may be changing direction on pollution earlier than expected.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a longtime China analyst now with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, calculated that CO2 emissions from the world’s biggest national polluter are likely to fall next year and could then go into “structural decline”.

Labour leader aims to set up ‘British jobs bonus fund’ to challenge oil firms to accelerate shift to clean energy

Keir Starmer has challenged the oil industry to dramatically speed up its shift to clean energy by offering up to £2.5bn to subsidise new jobs in renewables for North Sea workers.

The Labour leader has told executives from firms including Shell and BP that the UK is in a global race to move away from oil and gas, with competitor countries such as the US investing billions in climate-friendly technologies.

Nine women used hammers and chisels to shatter building’s windows in April 2021 as part of Extinction Rebellion protest

Nine climate protesters have been cleared by a jury of causing £500,000 worth of criminal damage to the windows at the headquarters of HSBC bank in London.

The women, who were all taking action as members of Extinction Rebellion, sang and chanted as they shattered the custom-made glass windows with hammers and chisels at about 7am on 22 April 2021.