The Guardian

As another big climate conference looms and global ‘loss and damage’ takes hold, we must keep pressure on the biggest emitters

• Prof Saleemul Huq died on 28 October, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was 71. This is his final piece of writing

Prof Saleemul Huq OBE and I wrote and submitted this article before his untimely death on Saturday 28 October, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Huq was a visionary and steadfast leader on climate justice, a champion of developing countries at climate negotiations, an advocate for the global poor, and a source of inspiration to thousands worldwide. He continually pushed for “loss and damage” measures, whereby the nations that emit the bulk of greenhouse gasses help address the needs of lower-emitting nations who nonetheless bear the brunt of the climate crisis. A loss and damage fund was finally achieved at Cop27, but it needs strong advocates to ensure it is followed and expanded.

His sudden death is a blow to the global south, and to all those who work towards climate justice. Here, we touch on our concerns for the upcoming Cop28 summit, and the future of the loss and damage project, and call for greater concerted efforts on climate accountability. Farhana Sultana

Farhana Sultana is a professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York

Saleemul Huq was the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh

Audit finds ‘little to no improvement’ in health of sea between 2016 and 2021, as Swedish coastguard battles oil spill

The Baltic Sea faces “critical challenges” due to the climate crisis and degradation of biodiversity, a report has said, as Sweden’s coastguard battled to contain the impact of an oil spill off the country’s southern shore.

In the most comprehensive audit of its kind to date, experts at the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helcom) said on Tuesday there had been “little to no improvement” in the health of the body of water between 2016 and 2021.

Durham University research found warnings of environmental or health impacts reduced choice of meals containing meat by 7-10%

People are used to seeing stark warnings on tobacco products alerting them about the potentially deadly risks to health. Now a study suggests similar labelling on food could help them make wiser choices about not just their health, but the health of the planet.

The research, by academics at Durham University, found that warning labels including a graphic image – similar to those warning of impotence, heart disease or lung cancer on cigarette packets – could reduce selections of meals containing meat by 7-10%.

Researchers find the plants don’t use conventional processes to follow the sun across the sky

With their bright yellow manes and sturdy stems, sunflowers might seem like a simple summer delight. But researchers say the plants are surprisingly enigmatic after discovering they don’t use conventional processes to track the sun across the sky.

Over the course of a day, sunflowers follow the path of the sun overhead – a process known as heliotropism – with their heads tilting progressively westwards as a result of cells elongating on the east side of the stem.

‘Nothing’s changed’ stance by Murray Auchincloss needs time despite sceptism of investors

• BP plays down takeover speculation after lower than expected profits

“We remain committed to executing our strategy,” said Murray Auchincloss, BP’s stand-in chief executive, for the umpteenth time since Bernard Looney was defenestrated as permanent boss seven weeks ago. Auchincloss’s problem is that repetition doesn’t make it more convincing in the eyes of a sceptical market. Investors were already wondering if Looney would bow to pressure to water down his green transition plans further. Now it’s open season for speculation about BP’s future. Takeover target? Breakup candidate? There is an air of instability.

That is partly because the two biggest US oil majors are seemingly more confident than ever in their hydrocarbons-for-longer strategies. ExxonMobil is buying the US shale group Pioneer for $60bn (£49bn) and Chevron is making a record purchase by paying $53bn for Hess, complete with access to Guyana’s offshore oil reserves. Both deals are a case of doubling down on fossil fuels, which naturally provokes a fresh round of muttering among a few BP investors about whether renewables will ever earn the same returns on capital as oil and gas. BP’s shares are persistently priced at a valuation discount to those of the US majors.

When Rishi Sunak granted 27 new North Sea licences this week, he wasn’t thinking about the survival of the living world

Can you see it yet? The Earth systems horizon – the point at which our planetary systems tip into a new equilibrium, hostile to most lifeforms? I think we can. The sudden acceleration of environmental crises we have seen this year, coupled with the strategic uselessness of powerful governments, rushes us towards the point of no return.

We’re told we are living through the sixth mass extinction. But even this is a euphemism. We call such events mass extinctions because the most visible sign of the five previous catastrophes of the Phanerozoic era (since animals with hard body parts evolved) is the disappearance of fossils from the rocks. But their vanishing was a result of something even bigger. Mass extinction is a symptom of Earth systems collapse.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

French banks have financed $154bn to firms running biggest fossil fuel projects since 2015 climate pact

France is Europe’s biggest supporter of “carbon bomb” extraction projects that hold enough fossil fuels to pump out more than a gigaton of CO2 each, the Guardian can reveal.

Since world leaders gathered in the French capital to sign the Paris agreement in 2015 – where they promised to try to stop the planet heating by 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – French banks have financed companies planning or operating carbon bombs amounting to $154bn.

London mayor says releasing animals into wild is environmentally sound and a Labour vote-winner

• UK politics live – latest updates

Beavers should be released across the country under a Labour government, Sadiq Khan has said.

The London mayor said he was disappointed with recent comments by the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, who said her department would not be legalising beaver releases as she had “other priorities”.

Exclusive: Projects that risk 1.5C heating target operated by companies receiving financing from European, Chinese and US banks

Banks pumped more than $150bn last year into companies whose giant “carbon bomb” projects could destroy the last chance of stopping the planet heating to dangerous levels, the Guardian can reveal.

The carbon bombs – 425 extraction projects that can each pump more than one gigaton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – cumulatively hold enough coal, oil and gas to burn through the rapidly dwindling carbon budget four times over. Between 2016 and 2022, banks mainly in the US, China and Europe gave $1.8tn in financing to the companies running them, new research shows.

In the disinformation age it’s not enough for us to shake our heads about the lies the other side perpetrates

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Fresh from dragging an invitation for reconciliation into a mire of racial division, the reactionary right is prepping a new community consensus to infect, recasting the transition to renewables as a reckless attack on the environment.

The Albanese government’s election mandate to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, kick-started with a rapid transition to renewables including a 43% target by 2030, has shifted the climate agenda from advocacy to action.

Sadiq Khan hails ‘huge progress’ as progress report finds more than 95% of vehicles are now compliant

• Ulez: what is it, how much does it cost and why is it so controversial?

The number of the most polluting vehicles driven in London has fallen by almost half since the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) was expanded, taking almost 80,000 older cars off the roads.

About 77,000, or 45%, fewer non-compliant cars and vans were detected on average a day in September, the first month of operation of the expanded zone – compared with June 2023.

Research highlights benefits forests bring surrounding regions in terms of cooler air and more rainfall

Deforestation has a far greater impact on regional temperatures than previously believed, according to a new study of the Brazilian Amazon that shows agricultural businesses would be among the biggest beneficiaries of forest conservation.

The paper has important political implications because farmers in Amazonian states have, until now, led the way in forest destruction on the assumption that they will make money by clearing more land.

Having good chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C is gone, sending ‘dire’ message about the adequacy of climate action

The carbon budget remaining to limit the climate crisis to 1.5C of global heating is now “tiny”, according to an analysis, sending a “dire” message about the adequacy of climate action.

The carbon budget is the maximum amount of carbon emissions that can be released while restricting global temperature rise to the limits of the Paris agreement. The new figure is half the size of the budget estimated in 2020 and would be exhausted in six years at current levels of emissions.

Nobody experiences the purple light of the blossoms as totally as the bee inside her petal trumpet

It is what jacarandas do to blue sky that makes us so helpless to resist them. They emerge in early summer, when we hope the skies will be bluest, and make them bluer still. “The jacaranda flames on the air like a ghost,” the Australian poet Douglas Stewart wrote, “Like a purer sky some door in the sky has revealed.”

Their blossoms fall, turning the ground to the sky, like still water reflecting clouds, and in the middle is us, bobbing happily up and down.

Pumpkin growers in west and south-west fail to achieve predicted yields as climate crisis worsens drought and heat extremes

Alan Mazzotti can see the Rocky Mountains about 30 miles west of his pumpkin patch in north-east Colorado on a clear day. He could tell the snow was abundant last winter, and verified it up close when he floated through fresh powder alongside his wife and three sons at the popular Winter Park resort.

But one season of above-average snowfall wasn’t enough to refill the dwindling reservoir he relies on to irrigate his pumpkins. He received news this spring that his water delivery would be about half of what it was from the previous season, so he planted just half of his typical pumpkin crop. Then heavy rains in May and June brought plenty of water and turned fields into a muddy mess, preventing any additional planting many farmers might have wanted to do.

Thérèse Coffey says data will be gathered on impact of emerging industry and UK will not support licences in meantime

Britain is backing a moratorium on commercial deep-sea mining, after criticism from scientists, MPs and environmentalists of its previous stance in support of the emerging industry.

On Monday, the UK government announced it would back a temporary suspension on supporting or sponsoring any exploitation licences to mine metals from the sea floor until enough scientific evidence was available to understand the impact on ecosystems.

Exclusive: Hundreds of ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ defences are in areas battered by Storm Babet, according to analysis by Unearthed

More than 4,000 of England’s vital flood defences are so damaged they are almost useless, including hundreds in areas battered by Storm Babet.

Nearly 800 critical assets – defined as those where there is a high risk to life and property – were in a “poor” or “very poor” condition in the 10 English counties worst affected by last week’s historic downpours.

Conservation charity will roll out two-year pilot scheme across UK as it seeks to increase young people’s engagement with nature

Europe’s largest wildlife conservation charity is giving free access to all of its reserves for those who are 24 and under as it attempts a “youth revolution” to better engage young people with nature.

The two-year pilot programme will be rolled out across the UK from 6 November, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said in a document sent out to volunteers.

Introduced with the right safeguards and a well-publicised countryside code, freeing up access to green space can reset our relationship with nature

During a recent House of Commons debate on public access to nature, MPs on both sides of the aisle seized the opportunity to indulge in a spot of bucolic lyricism. William Wordsworth, John Keats, Laurie Lee, John Constable and Beatrix Potter were among those mentioned in dispatches. But the most significant intervention was made by the then shadow minister for nature, Alex Sobel.

A future Labour government, said Mr Sobel, would introduce Scottish-style right-to-roam legislation in England, vastly expanding access to woods, rivers and grasslands. Labour would offer people “the right to experience, the right to enjoy and the right to explore”. In a country where the right to roam currently applies to only 8% of land, this was an approach that was true to the party’s long tradition of campaigning for wider access to the countryside. It is also one which has huge popular support.

Increasing infestation in the Italian capital blamed on city’s refuse problem and high temperatures

Andrea Velardi had just settled down to dine on the terrace of his friend’s apartment near Campi de’ Fiori in central Rome when he felt an excruciating pain in his foot.

It was nearing sunset on a sweltering day in mid-August, and his friend had valiantly tried to kill off the unusually large wasps that had been swarming around the terrace before the guests arrived. “He wanted to protect us,” said Velardi. “But one on the ground beneath the table was still alive … the pain was tremendous, and my foot swelled up so much I couldn’t walk. I knew straight away that this wasn’t a normal wasp sting.”