The Guardian

Activists caused permanent harm to frame holding Peach Trees in Blossom at a London art gallery, judge finds

Two Just Stop Oil activists have been found guilty of causing criminal damage after glueing themselves to the frame of a Vincent van Gogh painting at a London art gallery.

Emily Brocklebank, 24, and Louis McKechnie, 22, caused just under £2,000 of damage at the Courtauld Gallery when they attached themselves to the 1889 work Peach Trees in Blossom, their trial heard on Tuesday.

A shy albatross, a skydiving kestrel and a curious galah are among the shortlisted and winning photos in this year’s bird photography prize, chosen from more than 5,600 images. Funds raised by the competition support bird conservation programs

Campaigners call for more access after analysis reveals public cannot access huge chunks of many parks

The majority of many of the national parks in England and Wales are shut off to walkers, analysis by campaigners has found, as they ask for larger areas to be opened to the public.

Research by the Campaign for National Parks shows that just 10% of the Pembrokeshire coast is open to the public. Only 36% of land is accessible in the Peak District, which was the first designated national park, and given the status in 1951 after protests over the right to freely roam in the countryside, most notably the Kinder trespass.

A list of the five most promising legal steps we can take to help fight climate change

The world has reached an acute point in the “highway to climate hell”. Talks at Cop27 barely achieved anything, despite the fact that almost one-third of Pakistan’s territory was submerged during unprecedented flooding; record heat over the summer killed nearly 25,000 in Europe; and almost 200,000 people in a major US city have not had clean water for months.

It’s all too easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of such widespread catastrophe. But we as citizens can do something right now. There are many interesting and entirely workable legal ideas percolating around the world from some very thoughtful people. Together, alongside increased citizen activism, these ideas can begin to provide a coherent and comprehensive legal framework for all of us to help save the planet.

Steven Donziger is a human rights lawyer and environmental justice advocate. He is also a Guardian US columnist

The country is highlighting China’s status as top polluter after being called out for climate inaction

The US, fresh from reversing its 30 years of opposition to a “loss and damage” fund for poorer countries suffering the worst impacts of the climate crisis, has signaled that its longstanding image as global climate villain should now be pinned on a new culprit: China.

Following years of tumult in which the US refused to provide anything resembling compensation for climate damages, followed by Donald Trump’s removal of America from the Paris climate agreement, there was a profound shift at the Cop27 UN talks in Egypt, with Joe Biden’s administration agreeing to the new loss and damage fund.

The action in the Victorian supreme court mirrors another in the US that was recently settled for $1.3bn

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A class action against car company Mercedes-Benz is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over the alleged use of “cheat devices” to manipulate diesel emissions.

The action, filed in the Victorian supreme court on Tuesday, covers thousands of vehicles sold in Australia over a 10-year period.

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Move comes after lawyers and MPs raised concerns about charitable status of Global Warming Policy Foundation

The Charity Commission has confirmed that it is reviewing a complaint about the Global Warming Policy Foundation after lawyers and MPs formally raised concerns about its charitable status.

GWPF exists to question policy around the climate crisis, and was set up by former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, who has said that climate change is not a threat, but “happening very gently at a fraction of a degree per decade, which is something we can perfectly well live with”.

Just Stop Oil campaigners were held on remand after charges relating to M25 protests

More than 30 climate activists were behind bars in UK prisons while diplomats from around the world negotiated at the Cop27 UN climate talks in Egypt.

Most of the activists, all supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign, were held on remand after being charged with causing a public nuisance, or conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, in relation to disruptive protests on the M25 motorway.

Exclusive: Most important antibiotics for human health still used in supply chains of major US food companies, risking spread of superbugs

Suppliers of beef to McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Walmart are sourcing meat from US farms that use antibiotics linked to the spread of dangerous superbugs, an investigation has found.

Unpublished US government records obtained by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian show farms producing beef for meat packing firms Cargill, JBS, and Green Bay are risking public health by still using antibiotics classed as the “highest priority critically important” to human health (HP-CIAs).

On a beach in Senegal with so much rubbish that much of the sand is covered, one man is trying to raise awareness about the dangers of plastics

Firstly reduce your reliance on packaging by consuming all your groceries AT the supermarket

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Trials of the SharkGuard – which emits a pulse to repel sharks and rays from fishing gear – have produced eye-catching results

Marine scientists have designed a piece of technology that could drastically reduce shark bycatch by emitting short electrical pulses as a deterrent.

The small battery-powered device, known as SharkGuard, reduced the numbers of blue sharks accidentally caught by commercial fishing gear in a French longline tuna fishery in the Mediterranean by 91% and stingrays by 71%, according to a study in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.

Qualified victory was snatched from defeat at the climate summit with a genuine and surprising agreement on loss and damage. But there’s still no plan to get to 1.5C

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The Cop27 climate summit ended in a desperate and confused flurry more than 40 hours late with a qualified victory clutched from the jaws of complete failure, but with the big issues unresolved.

If this sounds familiar, like so many climate summits before it, well … yes. There were genuine developments over the past week, some of which could reshape the global response to the crisis. But there was also intransigence and blocking where it mattered most. Some of that is getting worse.

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Experts say biggest economies must pledge more cuts to carbon emissions but hail agreement to set up loss and damage fund

• A deal on loss and damage, but a blow to 1.5C – what will be Cop27’s legacy?

The world still stands “on the brink of climate catastrophe” after the deal reached at the Cop27 UN climate summit on Sunday, and the biggest economies must make fresh commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate experts and campaigners have warned.

The agreement reached in Sharm el-Sheikh early on Sunday morning, after a marathon final negotiating session that ran 40 hours beyond its deadline, was hailed for providing poor countries for the first time with financial assistance known as loss and damage. A fund will be set up by rich governments for the rescue and rebuilding of vulnerable areas stricken by climate disaster, a key demand of developing nations for the last 30 years of climate talks.

The creation of a loss and damage fund is a milestone, but a 1.5C limit to the global temperature rise looks even further out of reach

The Cop process often seems to encapsulate the broader global reaction to climate breakdown. Leaders make grand but vague pledges of action; fossil fuel lobbyists (600 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this year) schmooze and press governments into maintaining the status quo; and scientists, civil society groups and those most affected by the climate emergency have to scream to be heard at all. The results are predictable: indecision, evasion, obstruction and buck-passing followed by desperately needed – but desperately inadequate – last-minute action.

Given the utter disarray evident as late as Saturday evening, the final outcome of Cop27 is a relief, and in one regard even a cause for celebration. The agreement to establish a loss and damage fund is a historic breakthrough, demanded for three decades by developing countries. The devil will as usual lie in the detail: who will fund it? But it should help to provide the financial assistance poorer nations need for rescuing and rebuilding as extreme weather pummels their populations and infrastructure. And it comes despite the sustained opposition of the US and (until the eleventh hour) the EU.

With the deadly devastation fresh in the world’s mind, Pakistan pushed for damage funds with other frontline countries

In early September, after unprecedented rainfall had left a third of Pakistan under water, its climate change minister set out the country’s stall for Cop27. “We are on the frontline and intend to keep loss and damage and adapting to climate catastrophes at the core of our arguments and negotiations. There will be no moving away from that,” Sherry Rehman said.

Pakistan brought that resolve to the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh and, as president of the G77 plus China negotiating bloc, succeeded in keeping developing countries united on loss and damage – despite efforts by some rich countries to divide them. Its chief negotiator, Nabeel Munir, a career diplomat, was backed by a team of savvy veteran negotiators who had witnessed the devastation and suffering from the floods, which caused $30bn (£25bn) of damage and economic losses. Every day, Munir repeated the same message: “Loss and damage is not charity, it’s about climate justice.”

Rather than a bloated global talking shop, we need something smaller, leaner and fully focused on the crisis at hand

• Bill McGuire is Prof Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at UCL

In the end, the recent shenanigans at the Cop27 meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh at least ended up making modest progress on loss and damage: high-emissions nations agreeing to pay those countries bearing the brunt of climate mayhem that they had little to do with bringing about.

But, yet again, there was no commitment to cutting the emissions causing accelerating this crisis, without which this agreement is nothing more – as one delegate commented – than a “down-payment on disaster”. No seasoned observers are of the opinion that the world is any nearer tackling the climate emergency. Indeed, the real legacy of Cop27 could well be exposing the climate summit for what it has become, a bloated travelling circus that sets up once a year, and from which little but words ever emerge.

World leaders, diplomats and activists respond to signing of ‘historic’ deal as climate talks wrap up

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

World leaders, diplomats, activists and experts have been reacting to the end of the Cop27 climate conference, which produced a groundbreaking agreement on climate finance for poorer countries but failed to make significant progress on many other matters. Here are some of the reactions from major players.

Deal is hailed as potential turning point that acknowledges vast inequities of climate crisis

Developing countries celebrated on Sunday morning as crucial climate talks ended with a “historic” deal on their most cherished climate goal: a global fund for “loss and damage”, providing financial assistance to poor nations stricken by climate disaster.

Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister and president of the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt, said: “We rose to the occasion. We worked around the clock, day and night, but united in working for one gain, one higher purpose, one common goal. In the end we delivered. We listened to the calls of anguish and despair.”

Protesters sat at tables in the Chelsea venue to highlight ‘perfect inequality’ of high-end dining

Climate crisis activists occupied Gordon Ramsay’s three-star Michelin restaurant in London’s Chelsea on Saturday evening to protest at the “perfect inequality” such high-end dining venues represent.

Members of Animal Rebellion entered Restaurant Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea at about 6pm.