The Guardian

In Britain and America unprincipled politicians are shredding policies to stop global heating – even as temperatures soar

The danger posed by heatwaves in Europe should be taken more seriously. On the continent, the headlines are about forest fires. In the UK, the story is about the country grinding to a standstill. Both views mask a deadly truth. High levels of heat are a killer, one seen retrospectively in the data on excess deaths and hospital admissions. It was only in 2008 that statisticians concluded that as many as 70,000 people died as a result of a heatwave in Europe in 2003. By foolishly telling people to “enjoy the sunshine” Dominic Raab, the UK’s deputy prime minister, proved that there is no challenge he would not rise to.

It is disappointing that the next UK prime minister will be chosen by a Tory party membership that cares very little about dealing with the climate emergency. Global heating will make lethal summer temperatures more common and more extreme. In the cabinet, Alok Sharma remains a rare Tory voice of reason. It is a worry that at least one of the contenders in the Tory party leadership race thinks that the choice for Conservatives is either to be a party of net zero or a party of low taxes.

Green activists brought challenge, arguing climate change strategy did not spell out how carbon emissions cuts would be achieved

The high court has ordered the government to outline exactly how its net zero policies will achieve emissions targets, after a legal challenge from environmental groups.

Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project had all taken legal action over the government’s flagship climate change strategy, arguing it had illegally failed to include the policies it needed to deliver the promised emissions cuts.

There is no ‘peace’ to be brokered with fossil fuel companies who stand to make billions. Effective policy is to threaten their gains

Anthony Albanese has repeatedly pledged to “end the climate wars”.

He won’t.

Australia’s list of threatened species grows as ecosystems show signs of collapse due to climate crisis and habitat loss, report finds

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The health of Australia’s environment is poor and has deteriorated over the past five years due to pressures of climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, according to a government report that warns the natural world holds the key to human wellbeing and survival.

The state of the environment report – a review completed by scientists last year but held back by the Morrison government until after the federal election – found abrupt changes in some Australian ecosystems over the past five years, with at least 19 now showing signs of collapse or near collapse.

Since 2016, 202 animal and plant species have been listed as threatened matters of national environmental significance, following 175 being added to the list between 2011 to 2016. This has happened while the rate of discovery and description of new species has slowed considerably over the past decade. There remain many more species that are unknown than those known.

While a government threatened species strategy had improved the trajectories of 21 priority species, many others did not show improvements. The list would increase substantially in coming years as the impact of the catastrophic 2019–20 bushfires – which killed or displaced between 1 billion and 3 billion animals – became clearer.

Australia has lost more mammal species than any other continent, and has one of the highest rates of species decline in the developed world. More than 100 Australian species have been listed as either extinct or extinct in the wild. The major causes of extinction were introduced species and habitat destruction and clearing.

With the country melting I can no longer distract myself from my fears about global heating. But speaking to activists has shown me how to counter this terror

I was chairing a Zoom event last week about carbon bombs, and how to defuse them. All over the world, as governments broadcast warm words to a warming planet, corporations are planning and lobbying for fossil fuel projects, which, if they get off the ground, will sail us casually past our carbon targets – almost as if democracy itself were just a beach-body diet that everybody talked about and nobody intended to stick to. How to stop this nihilistic corporate greed? Legal avenues, direct action, political routes, or everything all at once?

As I was doing this, a message popped up in the chat from Kjell Kühne, an academic and activist and one of the panellists: “Stop biting your nails please.” “Huh,” I thought, “weird thing to say to 846 people. How does he know they’re all biting their nails?” Then I realised it was a private message just to me. I considered messaging back: “Chum, when you stop making this incredibly compelling case about the climate apocalypse, I’ll stop biting my nails.” Then I remembered I was supposed to be chairing and got my head back on task.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

António Guterres issued a dire warning that the global warming limit of 1.5C agreed under the 2015 Paris climate accord was slipping further out of reach as more people around the world are hit by extreme floods, droughts, storms and wildfires. The UN secretary general made his remarks at the 12th Petersberg Climate Dialogue conference, which started on Monday in Berlin

• Humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chief
  

MP joins the four other candidates in saying they would not unpick UK’s environmental commitments

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Kemi Badenoch has backed the government’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and vowed not to unpick current climate commitments in an apparent U-turn at the Tory leadership environment hustings.

The MP for Saffron Walden had previously likened the target to “unilateral economic disarmament” but under questioning from Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president, at the hustings in parliament on Monday she said she backed it.

Activists file formal complaint alleging government has breached international law in signing deal

Environmental campaigners have launched a last-ditch legal bid to prevent or delay the UK’s trade deal with Australia, owing to concerns over its impacts on the climate and the natural world.

A group of seven environmental and farming organisations has filed a formal complaint alleging that the UK government breached international law in signing the deal, which they fear is about to pass into law without any further in-depth parliamentary scrutiny.

Government criticised over ‘indefensible’ proposal that could undermine climate efforts while yielding benefit of only £1.38m

The UK government may be undermining its commitments to end deforestation overseas because of conflicts over trade policy, the Guardian has learned.

A war of words is raging within the government over deforestation and trade, with green campaigners warning that a proposed policy could have dire consequences for efforts to stop illegal logging.

Dangerous heat will become the norm, even in the UK. Systems need to urgently change – and the silence needs to be broken

Can we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You know, the only subject that ultimately counts – the survival of life on Earth. Everyone knows, however carefully they avoid the topic, that, beside it, all the topics filling the front pages and obsessing the pundits are dust. Even the Times editors still publishing columns denying climate science know it. Even the candidates for the Tory leadership, ignoring or downplaying the issue, know it. Never has a silence been so loud or so resonant.

This is not a passive silence. It is an active silence, a fierce commitment to distraction and irrelevance in the face of an existential crisis. It is a void assiduously filled with trivia and amusement, gossip and spectacle. Talk about anything, but not about this. But while the people who dominate the means of communication frantically avoid the subject, the planet speaks, in a roar becoming impossible to ignore. These days of atmospheric rage, these heatshocks and wildfires ignore the angry shushing and burst rudely into our silent retreat.

Internal documents explain why oil and gas interests would benefit from a key Indigenous declaration being ‘defeated’

A US-based libertarian coalition has spent years pressuring the Canadian government to limit how much Indigenous communities can push back on energy development on their own land, newly reviewed strategy documents reveal.

The Atlas Network partnered with an Ottawa-based thinktank – the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) – which enlisted pro-industry Indigenous representatives in its campaign to provide “a shield against opponents”.

Experts call on UK officials to prepare for periods of extreme heat or risk thousands of excess deaths

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The UK is no longer a cold country, scientists have said, as climate breakdown means “previously impossible heatwaves are killing people”.

This week temperatures of 40C (104F) have been predicted for the first time by the Met Office, but climate models show these weather events are expected to become more common.

António Guterres tells governments ‘half of humanity is in danger zone’, as countries battle extreme heat

• UK heatwave: latest updates

Wildfires and heatwaves wreaking havoc across swathes of the globe show humanity facing “collective suicide”, the UN secretary general has warned, as governments around the world scramble to protect people from the impacts of extreme heat.

António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: “Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.”

Wild bison have returned to the UK for the first time in thousands of years. Three bison were released into the Kent countryside, in the hope that their natural behaviour will transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland.

Thriving woodlands also absorb more carbon, helping to tackle the climate crisis. Global heating was evident as the bison were released, with England in the grip of a heatwave, and the early timing was to allow the bison to reach the shade of the woods before temperatures started to climb

• Wild bison return to UK for first time in thousands of years
  

British buildings are not designed for heat, if you have time knock them down and start again

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The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress offers a chance to find a way to balance economic growth with conserving wilderness

Africa’s more than 8,500 protected areas of land and sea cover more than 30% of the continent – an expanse almost the size of Australia and 28 times the size of the UK. These ecosystems play a critical role in climate mitigation and adaptation, as global heating wreaks havoc on all fronts.

Today, Africa is embarking on an ambitious trajectory, with significant technological advancements, radical agricultural techniques, groundbreaking approaches to alleviating poverty and unprecedented rates of economic growth. Our natural resources, especially those in protected areas, play a critical role in development models we pursue. However, only about 1,000 of these protected areas have sound management strategies.

The gentle giants released in Kent should transform a commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland

Early on Monday morning, three gentle giants wandered out of a corral in the Kent countryside to become the first wild bison to roam in Britain for thousands of years.

The aim is for the animals’ natural behaviour to transform a dense commercial pine forest into a vibrant natural woodland. Their taste for bark will kill some trees and their bulk will open up trails, letting light spill on to the forest floor, while their love of rolling around in dust baths will create more open ground. All this should allow new plants, insects, lizards, birds and bats to thrive.

This extreme heat is just the beginning. We should be scared – and channel this emotion into action

• Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and a climate activist.

There’s no getting around it, the UK’s once equitable climate is falling apart. We are now firmly on course for hothouse Britain and the signs are all around us. Just three years ago, the mercury hit 38.7C (101.7F) in Cambridge – then an all-time record. A year later, meteorologists at the UK Met Office mocked-up a weather forecast for 2050, showing 40C-plus temperatures across much of the UK.

But the speed of climate breakdown is such that this future is already upon us. On Monday, the Met Office’s first ever red extreme heat warning comes into force for much of England, as ferocious 40C-plus temperatures threaten to overwhelm ambulance services and A&E departments, and potentially bring about thousands of deaths.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and a climate activist. His latest book, Hothouse Earth: an Inhabitant’s Guide is published on 4 August

Prof Ian Chubb, who is leading a review of the controversial scheme, says there are also credible voices defending it

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The former Australian chief scientist charged with investigating the country’s divisive carbon credit system says academics who have described it as a fraud and a sham are “serious people”.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Prof Ian Chubb said there were also credible voices defending the scheme and he would need to carefully weigh the evidence.

NSW and Victorian governments say at least four refuelling stations will be built along Hume Highway

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The New South Wales and Victorian governments will spend $20m on hydrogen refuelling stations along Australia’s busiest freight highway in a push to see more zero-emissions technology used in the heavy-vehicle industry.

In a joint announcement the two governments say they will each spend $10m on grants to manufacture about 25 hydrogen-fuelled trucks and at least four refuelling stations along the 840km Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne.