The Guardian

British-Egyptian activist says he will cease drinking, raising fears he may die while officials attend summit

A British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist has said he will escalate his hunger strike inside a desert prison, raising concerns he could die while British officials attend the Cop27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a figurehead of Egypt’s 2011 uprising and one of the Middle East’s best-known political prisoners, has spent most of the past decade behind bars. Shortly after gaining British citizenship while in detention last year, he was sentenced to a further five years in a high-security prison on charges of “spreading false news” for sharing a social media post about torture.

Jake Gilbert, 11, has been reunited with his rescuers a week after he nearly drowned when sucked into flooded drain in Altona Meadows

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An 11-year-old boy who survived being sucked into a flooded stormwater drain has been reunited with his rescuers in Melbourne and gifted a new bike a week after the tumultuous ordeal.

Jake Gilbert was cycling with a friend in Altona Meadows last week when he rode across a submerged drain and was sucked 10 metres underneath a road.

By 2030, project will help conserve wide range of threatened wildlife in south-west England

A network of flower-filled grasslands sweeping from the fringes of sandy beaches to moorland edges is being created by the National Trust in the south-west of England.

Designed to boost flora and fauna – and be a balm for human visitors – the new grassland is due to cover more than 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of land in north Devon by 2030.

Report sponsored by some of the largest food and farming businesses finds pace of shift to sustainable practices too slow

Food companies and governments must come together immediately to change the world’s agricultural practices or risk “destroying the planet”, according to the sponsors of a report by some of the largest food and farming businesses released on Thursday.

The report, from a task force within the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI), a network of global CEOs focused on climate issues established by King Charles III, is being released days before the start of the United Nation’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.

Chemicals are likely used in food bags to make them repel grease, creating a potentially dangerous exposure for cats and dogs

Much of America’s pet food packaging could be contaminated with PFAS “forever chemicals”, creating a potentially dangerous exposure to the toxic compounds for cats and dogs.

In a recent study public health advocate the Environmental Working Group (EWG) checked 11 bags of pet food and found that all of them contained the substance, including several at extremely high levels.

The International Energy Agency has laid to rest the persistent myth that net zero policies are responsible for soaring energy prices

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For months conservative politicians and commentators in Australia and around the globe have been desperate to link the world’s energy crisis to policies to get greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.

By blaming the energy crisis on net zero policies, commentators have laid the fears and suffering of people around the world at the feet of climate advocates, the UN and any government with even the most moderate climate goals.

Marine Conservation Society reports sightings of species normally found in warmer waters

Britain’s seas are becoming populated with large groups of unusual jellyfish owing to climate breakdown, a survey by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has found.

In its first marine sightings report, which builds on 20 years of citizen science, the society has found an increased abundance of jellyfish types, including those normally found in warmer climes. Thousands of volunteers take part in the MCS report, telling the conservation group which species of jellyfish and turtles they have seen.

Global mapping reveals hotspots for untracked vessels in west Africa, the coast of Argentina and the north-west Pacific

Up to 6% of global fishing activity is hidden because commercial vessels disable their tracking systems, a practice that can be used to hide illegal fishing, according to a new study.

Ships use automatic identification systems (AIS), tracking beacons that enable them to be located on global shipping maps. Researchers applied a machine learning algorithm to a dataset of fishing vessel activity compiled by the non-profit Global Fishing Watch, which included more than 3.7bn AIS messages from fishing vessels between 2017 and 2019.

Vast carbon store may be close to point where it could flip from absorbing CO2 to releasing it, research shows

The Congo peatlands are a huge carbon “timebomb” that could be triggered by the climate crisis, research has shown.

The peatlands flipped from storing carbon to releasing it into the atmosphere when the climate became drier 5,000 years ago, the study showed, before returning to accumulating carbon 2,000 years ago.

Banaba in the central Pacific is a microcosm of what has happened to this planet. It’s a place that cannot be brought back into balance without focused and collaborative care

• Before it is lost is series of essays from the Pacific islands

Some years ago, an Australian friend gave me a necklace with a beautiful and distinct pendant.

The pendant had been in Helen Pilkinton’s family for decades and there were two more from a set of three that were given to each of her sisters.

Research comes as treasurer acknowledges ‘an appetite in the community’ to strengthen petroleum resource rent tax

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A majority of Australians, including Coalition voters, support taxing the super profits of the booming oil and gas industry, according to an authoritative annual survey.

The latest Climate of the Nation survey of voters – now in its 15th year and managed by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute – shows 61% of 2,691 respondents would back a windfall tax. The proposal captures majority support across all age, state, gender and voting intention demographics, with the exception of One Nation voters.

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Trend of faster warming over last 30 years likely to cause exceptional heat, wildfires and floods, warn scientists

Temperatures in Europe have increased at more than twice the global average in the last 30 years, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The effects of this warming are already being seen, with droughts, wildfires and ice melts taking place across the continent. The European State of the Climate report, produced with the EU’s Copernicus service, warns that as the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate breakdown outcomes will affect society, economies and ecosystems.

UK prime minister says he will now attend talks in Egypt next week

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Rishi Sunak is to attend the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt next week after No 10 previously said he was too focused on the domestic economy to attend and banned King Charles from going.

Sunak announced the U-turn on Twitter, making no reference to his previous reluctance, saying: “There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy security without investing in renewables. That is why I will attend Cop27 next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future.”

Alaa Abd El-Fattah has been on hunger strike for six months and will refuse water from 6 November, the first day of the climate summit

The majority of living Nobel prize for literature laureates have called on world leaders attending the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt this week to help free thousands of political prisoners in the country, including the writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah who is six months into a hunger strike and “at risk of death”.

The letter, organised by Abd El-Fattah’s UK publishers Fitzcarraldo Editions and Seven Stories Press, has been signed by 13 Nobel prize for literature winners: Svetlana Alexievich, JM Coetzee, Annie Ernaux, Louise Glück, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Mario Vargas Llosa, Patrick Modiano, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka and Olga Tokarczuk.

Committee says vague guidance and lack of follow-up make it hard for public to hold government to account

The UK government is failing to lead by example on taking action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and meet a legally binding target of reaching net zero by 2050, a watchdog has said.

Across Whitehall departments the rules for reporting, gathering data and taking action are vague, there is a free-for-all on reporting emissions reductions or the lack of them, and oversight is fragmented and ineffective, the public accounts committee said on Wednesday.

Berlin urges International Seabed Authority to prioritise nature as it debates rules and warns seabed mining may ‘destroy ecosystems’

Germany has called for a pause in the controversial deep-sea mining industry, saying not enough is known about the likely impacts of digging up the ocean floor for metals.

While other nations, including Spain and New Zealand, have previously called for a temporary halt to any exploitation of deep-sea metals, Germany, the world’s fourth biggest economy, is the most significant nation to voice its opposition to date. The country holds two of the 22 licences for exploration of the seabed.

Concern over country’s human rights record after Indian Ajit Rajagopal arrested on walk to raise awareness about climate crisis

The arrest of an Indian climate activist by Egyptian security forces has renewed alarm about the regime’s dire human rights record as it prepares to host the Cop27 UN climate summit.

Ajit Rajagopal, an architect and activist from Kerala in south India, was arrested on Sunday afternoon shortly after setting off on an eight-day walk from Cairo to Sharm el-Sheikh as part of a global campaign to raise awareness about the climate crisis.

Green Alliance lists measures that could cut emissions of gas that has 80 times global heating power of CO2

Methane emissions in the UK could be cut by more than 40% by 2030 with a raft of inexpensive policies, according to an environmental thinktank.

The government has pledged to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the global heating power of CO2, by at least 30% by 2030. The move was trumpeted by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister after the UK joined more than 100 other countries to make the pledge at Cop26 in Glasgow.

People can seem immune to the news of catastrophic climate breakdown, but that’s a very human response. There is hope

Last Friday the Guardian published a story under the headline “World close to ‘irreversible’ climate breakdown”. This was not a quote from Greta Thunberg or Extinction Rebellion, but the central message from three United Nations agencies.

They found there was “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and current pledges for action, even if honoured, would result in global heating of around 2.5C – in other words, a catastrophic climate breakdown, with devastating consequences for societies around the globe.