The Guardian
The Observer view on Cop28: UK is turning its back on chance to lead climate fight | Observer editorial
Our planet and its inhabitants have endured a grim time over the past 10 months. According to climate scientists’ latest figures, 2023 will almost certainly prove to have been the hottest year ever recorded. Global temperatures are destined to reach 1.43C above those experienced before the Industrial Revolution. The consequences have been striking. Glaciers are disappearing, ice caps melting and deserts spreading at an accelerating rate. On top of these climatic blights, intense rainfall, droughts and wildfires are happening more frequently and violently than have ever been experienced, with disturbing consequences.
Around 2 billion people, almost a quarter of the world’s population, endured at least five consecutive days of extreme heat in 2023, an unprecedented level of meteorological misery that claimed thousands of lives. And forecasters say there is more to come. Next year, temperatures are likely to rise even further thanks to El Niño, a periodic appearance of sea-surface warming in the Pacific, which heats the atmosphere across the planet.
Continue reading...‘It’s not viable any more’: global heating sparks first climate class action by Indigenous Australians
On Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, homes are already being inundated by king tides, the cemetery has been affected by erosion and sea walls have been built
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“We cannot garden anymore. They have to go far away to get the seafood,” says Aunty McRose Elu of life on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait.
“All of the effects [of climate change] on the islands changes the life of our people.
Continue reading...How a false claim about wind turbines killing whales is spinning out of control in coastal Australia
Windfarm critics claim projects will harm marine life. Scientists say that’s not backed by credible evidence
Some pictures show a whale lifeless on a beach. In others, the whale is on fire, jumping from the ocean, as wind turbines loom behind it.
The pictures are shocking – intentionally so. Recently they’ve appeared on posters and placards and in social media posts in New South Wales’ Hunter and Illawarra regions, as part of a growing campaign against an Albanese government plan to open offshore windfarms zones off the coast.
Continue reading...‘Shocking and sad’: photographer’s project reveals wildlife lost to pollution in Yorkshire’s River Wharfe
Mark Barrow returned to the site of an earlier shoot five years later and found aquatic life devastated by sewage
Five years ago, when Mark Barrow started his project to film along the 65-mile River Wharfe in Yorkshire, he captured footage of majestic shoals of grayling, the fish known as “the Lady of the Stream”, some 200 or 300 strong.
Recently, Barrow returned to the same spot, near the historic Harewood House on the outskirts of Leeds, to reshoot some video because he wasn’t happy with the quality of his earlier attempt.
Continue reading...Onshore wind projects in England stall as no new applications are received
Fears grow that Rishi Sunak’s anti-green policy shift is driving investment in renewable energy abroad
The government has received no new applications for onshore wind farms in England since cabinet ministers eased planning rules earlier this year – in a further sign that Rishi Sunak’s anti-green policy shift is driving investment abroad.
So far this year, only one new project, with a single turbine, has become fully operational in England, with many more being built in the EU – and in Scotland and Wales, where planning rules are less burdensome. This is despite renewables being seen as the cleanest and safest form of power, and having wide public support.
Continue reading...Wood burners more costly for heating than gas boilers, study finds
Charity says research dispels myth that wood burning, which has health risks, is a cheaper energy option
Wood burners are a more expensive way to heat homes than gas boilers or heat pumps, research shows.
A study found that as well as causing significant health and environmental dangers for the home’s occupants and their neighbours, it is up to 15% more costly to heat a home using a wood burner rather than a gas boiler.
Continue reading...What’s the hottest property on a boiling planet? Just ask a billionaire
Sales are through the roof
Continue reading...EU strikes landmark deal on law to restore and protect nature
Legislation will set targets to restore 20% of EU land and seas by 2030, and 90% of degraded habitats by 2050
EU lawmakers and member states have struck a deal on a landmark law to protect nature after watering down rules that critics argued would trouble farmers.
The nature restoration law, a hotly contested pillar of the European green deal, will force EU countries to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s land and seas by the end of the decade. It contains binding targets to restore at least 30% of degraded habitats by then, rising to 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050.
Continue reading...Weather tracker: Fatal floods in Somalia and record heat in Tokyo
Dozens of people dead in east Africa as El Niño and Indian Ocean dipole cause increased rainfall during monsoon season
In the past couple of days devastating floods have affected Somalia and surrounding countries, leaving 29 people dead and more than 300,000 people displaced from their homes, with figures expected to rise further as many remain trapped by flood waters.
Kenya also experienced flooding, with 15 deaths recorded. Nazanine Moshiri of the International Crisis Group said the cause of these devastating floods was the combined effect of two weather phenomena: El Niño and the Indian Ocean dipole.
Continue reading...Hazel dormice becoming endangered in UK amid 70% decline, study says
Species now extinct in 20 counties in England due to loss of woodland scrub and milder winters
Populations of the hazel dormouse, perhaps the most elusive native British mammal, have plummeted by 70% this century.
The nocturnal, tree-dwelling animals are now extinct in 20 counties in England and the species must be reclassified as “endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, according to a study by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES).
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures: sparring horses, seal pups and an ultra-rare platypus
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...Thames Water pumped at least 72bn litres of sewage into Thames since 2020
Exclusive: Lib Dems call for water companies to be more transparent with their data on sewage spills
Thames Water has pumped at least 72bn litres of sewage into the River Thames since 2020 – roughly equal to 29,000 Olympic swimming pools – new figures reveal.
Water firms have no legal obligation to report the amount of sewage discharged, only the number of hours that it was released. But campaigners argue this data is insufficient as this does not properly quantify how much sewage is in England’s rivers.
Continue reading...More people not having children due to climate breakdown fears, finds research
Analysis finds concerns about environment key factor in having fewer or no children – but reasons differ around world
It was just over a decade ago that Emma Smart and her husband, Andy, first decided they would not have children. Back then, her friends and family did not understand.
“When you tell people you didn’t want to have children, that was a big social no-no,” she recalled. “And then when they asked you why, and you said for environmental reasons, that was completely unheard of.
Continue reading...Microplastic-eating plankton may be worsening crisis in oceans, say scientists
Rotifers could be accelerating risk by splitting particles into thousands of potentially more dangerous nanoplastics
A type of zooplankton found in marine and fresh water can ingest and break down microplastics, scientists have discovered. But rather than providing a solution to the threat plastics pose to aquatic life, the tiny creatures known as rotifers could be accelerating the risk by splitting the particles into thousands of smaller and potentially more dangerous nanoplastics.
Each rotifer, named from the Latin for “wheel-bearer” owing to the whirling wheel of cilia around their mouths, can create between 348,000 and 366,000 nanoplastics – particles smaller than one micrometre – each day.
Continue reading...UN hunger expert: US must recognize ‘right to food’ to fix broken system
Some states have implemented free school meals, and Maine has a constitutional amendment to guarantee the ‘unalienable right to food’
The US must acknowledge the right to food in order to transform its broken food system in the post-pandemic era and make it more resilient in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, according to a United Nations hunger expert.
“Whether we’re talking about right to food, food justice or food sovereignty, there has been growing momentum over the last 10 years to understand that food is not just something we just leave to be determined by what is available or by corporations or the status quo,” said Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food.
Continue reading...Energy efficiency scheme for cold homes going at a glacial pace, says Labour
Government’s Energy Company Obligation has managed to upgrade only 65,000 homes since April 2022, figures show
Labour has attacked the Conservatives over the speed of government efforts to upgrade Britain’s draughty housing stock, as analysis showed a leading household energy efficiency initiative was proceeding at what the party called a “glacial pace”.
Just 65,000 homes have been upgraded under the government’s Energy Company Obligation (Eco) scheme since it was relaunched in April last year, according to analysis of statistics released by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
Continue reading...What does a Jordan Peterson conference say about the future of climate change? Apparently we’re headed towards ‘human flourishing’
Attendees of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship were treated to a grab-bag of cherrypicked talking points that ignored the risks from climate change
Rightwing figures from around the world descended on London last week for the inaugural conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) – a sort of quasi-thinktank fronted by controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Peterson pleaded with the audience at London’s O2 Arena to “tilt the world towards heaven and away from hell”, which, for many of the event’s main speakers, definitely did not mean worrying much at all about the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Number of species at risk of extinction doubles to 2 million, says study
New research on insects – without which the planet would not survive – shows a higher proportion are at risk of disappearing
Two million species are at risk of extinction, a figure that is double previous UN estimates, new analysis has found.
While scientists have long documented the decline of species of plants and vertebrates, there has always been significant uncertainty over insects, with the UN making a “tentative estimate” of 10% threatened with extinction in 2019.
Continue reading...Oil and gas ‘not the problem’ for climate, says UK’s net zero minister
Campaigners call Graham Stuart’s comments ‘laughable’ and say Conservatives are weaponising climate action
Oil and gas are “not the problem” for the climate, but the carbon emissions arising from them are, the UK’s net zero minister has told MPs.
In words that suggested the UK could place yet more emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon, Graham Stuart said fossil fuel production was not driving climate change, but demand for fossil fuels was.
Continue reading...Water regulator starts a ‘crackdown’ on bonuses about 30 years too late
Ofwat’s newfound interest in executive pay in the water industry is merely a tweak
About 30 years too late, many might say, here comes Ofwat with details on how it will “crack down”, as it puts it, on executive pay in the English water sector. Since the regulator’s new powers to interfere on boardroom pay don’t kick in until next year, this year’s assessment can be considered an explainer on how a new offside rule will work.
And the news from the video assistant referee is that Severn Trent, South West Water and Portsmouth Water committed offences that “did not meet our expectations”, says Ofwat, because either short- or long-term incentives were insufficiently aligned to good outcomes for customers or the environment. Does that mean the executives would have faced the humiliation of returning their dodgy rewards?
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