The Guardian

As the talks continued, there was a day of protests on Saturday outside the UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh

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Despite Labor’s increased emissions target, Australia has only improved four places to 55th out of 63 in the annual index

Australia continues to trail other developed countries in addressing the climate crisis, in part due to the Albanese government’s support for new fossil fuel developments, according to an analysis released at the Cop27 UN conference in Egypt.

The climate change performance index, published by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute and the Climate Action Network with input from 450 climate and energy experts and campaigners, found Australia was still a “very low performing country”. It ranked 55th on a list of 63 countries and country groupings, up from 59th last year.

World leaders need to appreciate the importance of local authorities in nations most affected by climate change

When I say Africans are deeply disappointed with Cop27 so far, I don’t want to be misunderstood. There have been real signs of progress, including meaningful shifts towards climate justice by European leaders. But the hope that the global south would have its voice heard by the most powerful nations at this year’s Cop summit has – predictably enough – failed to materialise.

For years now, global climate negotiations have been dominated by world leaders, policymakers and intergovernmental organisations, leaving little space for anyone else. There is not really any impetus to do otherwise.

Ndileka Mandela is a writer, social activist and the head of the Thembekile Mandela Foundation, which focuses on education, health, youth and women’s development in rural villages

Australia is back as a ‘constructive collaborator’ in negotations, he will tell summit, as he calls for more commitment from institutions

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The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, will use a speech at the Cop27 UN summit in Egypt to call out the World Bank for failing to address the climate crisis, and join calls for the international financial system to be reshaped.

Giving a national statement at the conference in Sharm el-Sheik on Tuesday, Bowen will declare that Australia is back as a “constructive, positive, and willing climate collaborator” since the Anthony Albanese-led Labor party ousted Scott Morrison’s rightwing coalition, which was widely criticised as a roadblock at climate negotiations.

Monday is water and gender day at the climate conference being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

So, obviously Cop27 is a crucial event for the future of the planet, and we are discussing many important and incredibly depressing issues. However, there is still room for a bit of fun, I think.

My colleague Nina Lakhani has noticed how many people at Cop are wearing stunning outfits, dressing colourfully and beautifully each day at the conference centre.

Leaders from Achuar and Wampis peoples say Petroperú is responsible for spills in their territory

Native leaders from the Peruvian Amazon are to travel to the US this week to lobby banks to cut financial ties with Peru’s state oil company, Petroperú.

Leaders from the Achuar and Wampis peoples say the state company is responsible for oil spills in their territory that violate their human rights by polluting their water sources and irreparably damaging their fishing and hunting grounds.

Unsettled weather to continue across western Europe and southern Australia forecast to experience unseasonably cold spell

After causing devastation in Florida last week, Hurricane Nicole travelled along the east coast of the US and across the Atlantic towards western Europe as an extratropical cyclone. The remnants of Nicole brought heavy rain and strong winds to Ireland, the UK and parts of northern France during Monday night and Tuesday.

Unsettled conditions are set to continue throughout the next few days across western Europe as several areas of low pressure move in from the Atlantic. These lows are expected to affect areas as far east as Norway and as far south as the Bay of Biscay, and will bring the potential of some localised flooding for the worst affected areas.

Carbon Tracker thinktank says investors in fossil fuels on the continent would be left with stranded assets

Expanding oil and gas exports would threaten the economic stability of many African countries, new analysis has found, despite soaring fossil fuel prices.

Demand for fossil fuels is likely to fall sharply in the medium term, according to a report published on Monday by the Carbon Tracker thinktank. That makes relying on gas exports to fuel economic growth a short-term, risky strategy, while boosting solar power would prove a better long-term bet, the analysis found.

Days scheduled to discuss issues such as women’s rights and civil society alongside formal negotiations

Water and the affects of the climate crisis on water scarcity will come under scrutiny on Monday at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh as it enters its second week.

The talks are scheduled to end on Friday, though it is likely they will continue at least into Saturday, with new measures and pledges hoped for on issues from greenhouse gas emissions cuts to financial assistance for the poorest nations.

Momentum matters on climate, and he won’t get another chance to make an urgent first impression

It lasted only three hours, but Joe Biden’s visit to Egypt on Friday afternoon underlined that it was a mistake for Anthony Albanese not to attend the annual UN climate conference known as Cop27.

Not a disastrous mistake, but an avoidable one, and a lost opportunity. The prime minister has turned down a chance to argue in front of more than 110 other leaders that his still-new government is serious about pushing for greater action – that, in the words of the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, “we’re back” after years as a global laggard. Momentum matters on climate, and Albanese won’t get another chance to make an urgent first impression.

With voters increasingly fearful about fires, floods and extreme temperatures, can the Tories find a way back towards reality?

On 8 November 1989, Margaret Thatcher gave a 4,000-word address to the United Nations general assembly in New York. It was an eloquent, urgent speech, book-ended with references to Charles Darwin and John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and full of portents of looming climate disaster that we now know all too well: the melting of polar ice, the shrinking of the Amazon rainforest, and the prospect of more frequent hurricanes, floods and water shortages.

In response, “squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay” was a self-evident path to catastrophe: what was needed, she told her audience, was “a vast international, co-operative effort”, with no refusers or deniers. “Every country will be affected,” she said, “and no one can opt out.”

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

The Met says Just Stop Oil are a tiny minority causing ‘disproportionate’ disruption. Isn’t environmental Armageddon enough justification?

Sometimes, a report of bad news makes me realise that the world circumstances I’d been living in weren’t as bleak as I’d been assuming. The death of Ella Fitzgerald did this for me. I’d thought she was long dead. It made me realise that I’d missed years of enjoying the fact of her still being alive. Perhaps, along with the “in memoriam” segment at the Baftas, there should also be a “surprisingly still alive” video to encourage us to appreciate some elderly stars while they’re still faintly twinkling.

I used to get the same sensation of retrospective positivity from reported job losses in the British car industry. I was always pleasantly surprised that there were still that many jobs left to lose. That’ll be it now though, I always thought, but then, a year or so later, another gargantuan layoff was announced and I was once again impressed by how many people in the UK had apparently still been making cars all this time.

‘The wild west approach needs to end,’ says climate scientist Bill Hare, amid warning targets should be met by cuts in absolute emissions

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The Australian government risks becoming a “state sponsoring greenwashing” if it keeps allowing companies to use carbon offsets without much tighter regulations, according to a member of an expert panel advising the UN on net zero climate pledges.

The UN panel released recommendations at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt for corporations, regions and policymakers around the world on credible net zero pledges.

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Project promises to create jobs and restore biodiversity, but locals say it is taking food-growing land out of production

The rolling fields south of Grantham are scenic, but these huge expanses of wheat and beans are almost bereft of insects in summer. In autumn, a few skylarks sing and the occasional buzzard soars, but there is precious little life in the landscape.

But soon a 1,525-acre swath of this productive Lincolnshire farmland will be brimming with wildlife, according to a new company that aims to restore biodiversity and make money by rewilding farmland.

The heavy presence of lobbyists from Moscow suggests Russia is using the climate talks to drum up business

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Russian oligarchs and executives from multiple companies under international sanctions are among the lobbyists currently attending Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Among those at the pivotal climate talks are the billionaire and former aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, who is under UK sanctions, and the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, the former head of the Russian fertiliser company the EuroChem group, who has been targeted with individual sanctions by the European Union which he disputed, calling them “absurd and nonsensical”.

As the UN climate conference reaches the end of its first week, activists around the world are calling for stronger climate action

A report released early this morning by campaigners Reboot Food finds that enough protein to feed the world could be produced in an area smaller than London.

The report suggests that if animal protein was grown through fermentation in tanks, rather than livestock in fields or barns, it would be a 40,900 times more efficient use of land.

Major producers of soya and beef accused of failing to deliver on pledges to stop deforestation

The world’s largest food companies, whose products have been linked to the widespread destruction of rainforests, have failed to come up with an adequate strategy to align their business practices with the 1.5C climate target, according to campaigners.

The leading producers of soya beans, palm oil, cocoa and cattle published their roadmap to align with 1.5C earlier this week, promising to develop and publish commodity-specific, time-bound targets on stopping deforestation which will be backed by science and checked each year. The companies include the Brazilian beef firm JBS, the American agricultural firm Cargill and the Singaporean food processing firm Wilmar International.

Acknowledging that climate breakdown is unavoidable is key to making fossil-fuel companies and governments take action

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on.

According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and the author of Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide

Despite ‘loss and damage’ focus there have been more oil and gas lobbyists than delegates from the most vulnerable countries

Humanity is on a highway to hell, with our foot on the accelerator. The message from the UN secretary general to more than 110 world leaders at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt could not have been clearer: change course now, or face “collective suicide”.

Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise this year, research published this week has shown, despite stark warnings from climate scientists in the past year. The prospects of sticking to the 1.5C limit above pre-industrial levels that scientists tell us is necessary have receded to a “narrow window”.

Advocates of plant-based protein say 75% of world’s farmland should be rewilded to reduce emissions

• Cop27 live – latest news updates

Enough protein to feed the entire world could be produced on an area of land smaller than London if we replace animal farming with factories producing micro-organisms, a campaign has said.

The Reboot Food manifesto argues that three-quarters of the world’s farmland should be rewilded instead.