The Guardian

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.

Superb singers, pollen showers and some Jambalaya on the Bayou. The winners of the sixth annual BirdLife Australia Bird Photography awards have been announced

I used to believe I had no real say in what our government did. But eventually I realised that that simply wasn’t true

I’m 16 years old and today I will be striking from school because of the government’s complete failure to combat a very real, and very dangerous threat to my future. I live in western Sydney and have lived here all my life. I enjoy school, and take my education seriously. I take pride in my academic achievement. Despite this, I’m walking out of school to fight for my future.

When I was in primary school, my teacher taught us about climate change, and how it’s caused. He would explain that it would lead to things like rising sea levels, more extreme temperatures, andworsening floods and fires. I understood what he said, but at the time it was hard to actually imagine what it meant.

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Even with bigger subsidies, the technology looks attractive price-wise compared with gas

The good news is that the government has an offshore wind strategy again, something that was in doubt after the last auction flopped by producing no bids from developers. The maximum price the state is prepared to pay for a windfarm’s output for 15 years has been set at £73 a megawatt hour for the 2024 auction, a level that should be high enough to grab attention in boardrooms and spark some bidding action.

The bad news, of course, is that £73 is a mighty leap from £44, the price that generated the big thumbs-down, and these subsidies end up on our bills. Yes, we all know about higher interest rates and inflation in everything from steel to the cost of transporting turbines to the North Sea. But a 66% increase?

Researcher says data suggests permit conditions breached on up to 70 days, but United Utilities disputes findings

Suspected illegal dumping of raw sewage into Windermere took place on up to 70 days in 2022, a year in which campaigners said the lake had its worst summer of harmful algal blooms, according to analysis of data released under environmental information rules.

Prof Peter Hammond, whose research first identified the scale of illegal raw sewage discharges from English water companies, has analysed detailed data on spills and treatment by United Utilities, which was released by the Environment Agency.

Scientists in eastern China find 24 out of 28 water samples have plastic particles commonly seen in synthetic fibers and packaging

Air, water, soil, food and even blood – microplastics have found their way virtually everywhere on Earth, and now that list includes clouds.

Bits of plastic particles were recently discovered above eastern China, with new research showing that these microplastics could influence cloud formation and the weather.

Species populations falling, with some decreasing due to loss of habitat and less food availability

More than half the seabird species breeding on British and Irish coasts have declined over the last 20 years, according to the most comprehensive census to date.

Eleven of 21 nesting seabirds species have fallen, five species have remained stable and five have increased, some because of targeted conservation work, according to the Seabirds Count survey.

Former chair of climate change committee says UK’s decision has encouraged other countries to keep exploiting fossil fuels

The UK’s decision to open a new coalmine in Cumbria was a “disaster” that encouraged other countries to press ahead with fossil fuels, and the continued expansion of North Sea oil and gas is likely to continue the harm, a former chief adviser to the government has said.

Other countries are using the UK as an excuse for pressing ahead with fossil fuel projects despite their climate commitments, according to Adair Turner, the first chair of the Committee on Climate Change and a former head of the CBI.

Concerns rose when no wind projects were put forward for government’s recent clean energy auction

The government will offer significantly higher subsidies for new offshore windfarms after crisis talks with developers that are battling cost inflation across global energy supply chains.

Ministers have agreed to raise the starting price of the government’s next auction for offshore wind subsidies by around two-thirds to £73 per megawatt hour to help more offshore windfarm projects to move ahead despite higher costs.

Group which owns Kmart and Target has not signed up to initiative that would impose 4 cent levy on garments to fund research

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The federal government has called on one of Australia’s biggest retailers, Kmart Group, to support an industry-led textile recycling scheme, or risk regulation.

Spearheaded by the Australian Fashion Council (AFC), the Seamless initiative is designed to tackle clothing waste through a levy system to increase the number of garments being resold, repaired, reworn and recycled.

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Rules would require firms to report emissions, find and fix leaks, and limit wasteful venting and flaring

The EU has struck a deal that will force the fossil fuel industry to rein in dangerous methane pollution.

Under the proposed law, the first of its kind, coal, oil and gas companies would be required to report their methane emissions and take steps to avoid them. The measures include finding and fixing leaks, and limiting wasteful practices such as venting and flaring gas by 2027.

Analysis deems technology promoted by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber ‘dangerous red herring’

Climate-wrecking emissions produced by the oil company of the Cop28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, would take hundreds of years to remove using the carbon capture technology he has been promoting.

With just weeks to go until the crucial Cop28 climate summit, Al Jaber, who is the boss of United Arab Emirate oil company Adnoc, has been backing carbon capture as one solution to the climate crisis.

Exclusive: at least 228 water conflicts were recorded in 2022 – an 87% rise on the year before, Pacific Institute database shows

• Peter Gleick: As water becomes a weapon of war, we must focus on cooperation and peace

Water-related violence surged to an all-time high in 2022 – driven in large part by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israeli attacks against Palestinian water resources in the West Bank.

At least 228 water conflicts were documented in 2022 – an 87% rise since 2021, according to research by the Pacific Institute shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Record increase in water-related violence shows how urgently we need to reduce these tensions between countries

In recent months, the world has been bombarded with reports of attacks on major dams and civilian water systems in Ukraine, water being used as a weapon during the violence in Gaza and the West Bank, unrest and riots in India and Iran over water scarcity and drought, and conflicts between farmers and herders in Africa over land and water sources. Our limited and precious freshwater resources have become triggers, weapons and casualties of war and conflict.

Water is vital for everything we want to do: it allows us to grow food, run industries and businesses, cook and clean our homes, and manage our wastes. Although there is plenty of water on Earth, it is unevenly distributed in space and time, with humid and arid regions as well as wet and dry seasons. These disparities lead to competition and disputes over water access and control. As populations and economies grow, the pressure on limited water supplies and the delicate ecosystems that depend on them is intensifying. And now, human-caused climate disruptions are affecting the planet’s hydrologic cycle, worsening extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, altering rainfall patterns, melting glaciers and snowpacks, and leading to higher temperatures and increased water demands.

Peter Gleick is co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Pacific Institute, Oakland, California, and author of the new book, The Three Ages of Water (PublicAffairs/Hachette 2023)

World Meteorological Organization sees ‘no end in sight to the rising trend’, largely driven by fossil fuel burning

The abundance of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere reached record highs in 2022, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported.

The WMO said “there is no end in sight to the rising trend”, which is largely driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

The global failure to reduce fossil fuels is leaving small island states trapped in a constant cycle of fightback against disease and extreme weather

Read more: Health of billions at risk from global heating, warns report

In the summer of 2023, the world recorded the highest temperature in 100,000 years. All continents were affected and even the gentle breeze often felt in the tropics did little to cool the sweltering heat experienced by small island developing states (Sids). Our latest Lancet Countdown report, tracking the connections between health and the climate crisis, showed that Sids experienced 103 health-threatening heat days each year between 2018 and 2022 – equating to almost a third of the year being above the threshold whereby heat-related deaths are likely to increase.

Aside from the direct dangers of exposure to health-threatening heat such as heat stress, heatstroke, and, in severe circumstances, death, increased heat improves the climate suitability for the spread of infectious diseases such as dengue fever, malaria and vibrio by expanding their climatic boundaries, our most recent data shows. Our mathematical models of dengue fever show an increase in the frequency of outbreaks with an increase in heat, and the evidence suggests that the climate crisis has exacerbated the frequency of these outbreaks.

State oil company’s huge expansion plans make its CEO’s role as president of UN climate summit ‘ridiculous’, say researchers

The state oil company of the United Arab Emirates, whose CEO will preside over imminent UN climate negotiations, has the largest net-zero-busting expansion plans of any company in the world, according to new data.

Sultan Al Jaber is the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and president of the Cop28 summit, which begins on 30 November. The researchers behind the new data said Adnoc’s huge planned expansion of oil and gas production was a clear conflict of interest and they said his position was “ridiculous”.

$140bn has been spent by the industry on exploration for new oil and gas reserves since 2021.

96% of the 700 companies that explore or develop new oil and gas fields are continuing to do so.

More than 1,000 companies are planning new gas pipelines, gas-fired power plants or liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals.

Quarter of new flood defence projects will also not go ahead, NAO finds, as Environment Agency blames cuts on inflation

The number of properties that will be better protected from flooding by 2027 has been cut by 40%, and 500 of 2,000 new flood defence projects have been abandoned, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

The number of homes forecast to be under enhanced flood protection by 2027 has been slashed from 336,000 to 200,000. This means 136,000 more homes will be at risk of flooding since plans were drawn up in 2020, figures from an NAO report show.