The Guardian

Guardian analysis finds 151 licences already granted threaten environmentally important spots

• England fracking ban lifted – with limits on seismic activity set to be raised

Licences for fracking encroach on some of the most environmentally protected areas in England, including national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.

As the government lifted the ban on drilling for shale gas, the Guardian analysed where drilling might take place in months and years to come.

Exclusive: Faith In Nature to give non-executive director or ‘nature guardian’ voice in business strategy

A beauty company has appointed a director to represent nature on its board, giving the natural world a legal say in its business strategy.

Faith In Nature, which sells soap and haircare products, as well as household cleaners and shampoo for dogs, says it is the first company in the world to give nature a formal vote on corporate decisions that might affect it.

The media outlets gave sizeable coverage to journal article that climate scientists said misrepresented their research

The climate science denial echo-chamber has been loud and proud this week with claims a new “international study” has found no evidence of a climate emergency in records of extreme weather.

So impressed was the Australian with the work that it ran uncritical coverage on page one and page two.

Report says urban nature restoration projects must be handled carefully to avoid pricing out locals

Poorer communities could be forced out of their areas by rewilding because of “green gentrification”, according to a report by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

The report finds that rewilding could lead to house prices rising as areas become more desirable and their risk of being affected by natural disasters such as floods decreases. New tourist opportunities may also result from enhanced green spaces and wildlife.

Denmark ‘gets ball rolling’ at UN ahead of protests as poor nations call for greater collective commitment

Youth groups in Africa are preparing to embark on a series of climate demonstrations on Friday to highlight the problem of “loss and damage” to poor countries blighted by climate breakdown, as only one rich country has so far stepped up with funding for the problem.

Actions will take place on Friday in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Togo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with more to follow in some other African nations over the weekend.

Chris Cornelius says geology is too challenging and government’s support is merely ‘soundbites’

• Why fracking won’t work for the UK – Chris Cornelius and Mark Linder

Fracking in the UK will be impossible at any meaningful scale and will not help with the energy price crisis, the founder of the UK’s first fracking company has warned.

Chris Cornelius, the geologist who founded Cuadrilla Resources, which drilled the UK’s first modern hydraulic fracturing wells in Lancashire, told the Guardian that he believed the government’s support for it is merely a “political gesture”.

The economic and political barriers to fracking here are extremely high. There are better solutions to the energy crisis

• Fracking won’t work in UK says founder of fracking company Cuadrilla

In one of her first acts as prime minister, Liz Truss pledged to lift the ban on fracking in England, with the aim of opening up access to Britain’s copious onshore natural gas resources.

You would imagine that we, as the founder and former public affairs director of Cuadrilla Resources, an oil and gas exploration company, would welcome this news. Although we are no longer involved with Cuadrilla, we believe this news is positive. But it is misleading to imply that the announcement will lead to meaningful supply of new gas in the UK in the foreseeable future. And we believe there are other more practicable steps that could be taken to produce significant energy in a timely manner. Here’s why.

Dr Chris Cornelius, an exploration geologist, was the founder of Cuadrilla Resources and Mark Linder was the first public affairs director. Neither has been involved with Cuadrilla for many years.

Tree project is central to net zero plan, international conference in London hears

The UK government’s tree planting scheme is at risk because of the drought, the chief plant health officer has warned.

Arid conditions have caused heat stress in the young saplings and caused them to become susceptible to disease, Nicola Spence said at the world’s first international plant health conference, held in London on Wednesday.

Democrats hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as a climate crisis victory – so why the secrecy over an oil and gas pipelines bill?

As climate change batters America with heatwaves, droughts and floods, lawmakers should be asking a simple question about any bill: does it increase or decrease the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the ecological emergency?

Somehow, though, that query is still not being asked right now in Washington, even as Democratic leaders are promising to advance a bill to gut environmental laws and expedite oil and gas pipelines.

David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Daily Poster. He served as Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign speechwriter

Julia Rock is a reporter for The Lever

More than a third of children’s clothing tested in a study detected PFAS, which are used to make textiles stain resistant

Toxic PFAS chemicals are frequently used to make children’s clothing and textiles resist water and stains, but exposure to the compounds in clothes represents a serious health risk, a new peer-reviewed study finds.

The study, published in the Environmental and Science Technology journal, detected the chemicals in 65% of school uniforms, rain gear, snowsuits, snowshoes, mittens, bibs, hats and stroller covers tested, and at levels authors characterized as “high”.

Amazon ecosystem is on verge of collapse, leaders tell brands such as Apple and Tesla as UN gathers in New York

Indigenous leaders from the Amazon have implored major western brands and banks to stop supporting the ongoing destruction of the vital rainforest through mining, oil drilling and logging, warning that the ecosystem is on the brink of a disastrous collapse.

Representatives of Indigenous peoples from across the Amazon region have descended upon New York this week to press governments and businesses, gathered in the city for climate and United Nations gatherings, to stem the flow of finance to activities that are polluting and deforesting large areas of the rainforest.

Pakistan continues to pay in loss and damages for the carbon emissions of others. This must change

• Sherry Rehman is Pakistan’s climate change minister

The climate crisis has accelerated at pace. When temperatures crossed 53C in Pakistan, the summer of 2022 turned our southern towns into the hottest places on the planet, melting our glaciers, burning our forests, scorching our crops. But nothing prepared the country for the biblical flooding that saw a third of Pakistan inundated by an ocean of water, surpassing even the 2010 disaster in magnitude and frequency.

Scientific modelling now attributes the extreme flooding in our country to the climate crisis, and the catastrophe presents a clear warning to all those who have set their climate clocks to another few decades. Previously unthinkable doomsday scenarios began to look like the inevitable: Sindh and Balochistan provinces transformed into horizon-free planes of unbroken water, with no land to pitch tents on, no rooftops left to huddle on. More than 33 million people were rendered destitute; 1,500 people died while the country struggled, in shock, to pick up the pieces.

Sherry Rehman is Pakistan’s climate change minister and former ambassador to the United States

Gas company’s approval set aside after Justice Mordecai Bromberg found the regulator did not consult properly with traditional owners

Tiwi Islanders have won a landmark case against drilling for gas by Santos in their traditional waters after complaining that the company failed to consult them about the impact of the project.

On Wednesday, judge Mordecai Bromberg set aside approval for the drilling, part of Santos’s Barossa project and gave Santos two weeks to shut down and remove its rig from the sea north of Melville Island.

The analysis is based on 489 studies of ant populations spanning every continent where the insects live

The world’s human population is forecast to surpass 8bn in the coming months. Compared with ants, that is a mediocre milestone.

Researchers have made the most thorough assessment to date of the global population of ants and the estimated total is a mind-blowing 20 quadrillion of them, or approximately 2.5 million for every human.

We cannot simply stand back and hope that the elite will give away their wealth to tackle the climate emergency

Making bold statements about addressing the climate crisis has become de rigueur in the corporate world over the past few years. But this was taken to a whole new level when the founder and owner of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, announced that his family was transferring 98% of the company’s stock to a newly created not-for-profit organisation dedicated to combatting climate breakdown.

Chouinard was applauded for “giving away” his company for the planet. He himself claimed that it was “turning capitalism on its head”. The widespread admiration of Chouinard is a telling sign of popular dissatisfaction with the excesses of the global corporate economy and its billionaire bosses. But the question remains: does this giveaway mark any fundamental change to the system?

Carl Rhodes is a professor of organisation studies at the University of Technology in Sydney

Exclusive: Green home upgrades could also create 140,000 new jobs by 2030, analysis by Cambridge Econometric finds

Insulating homes in Britain and installing heat pumps could benefit the economy by £7bn a year and create 140,000 new jobs by 2030, research has found.

But the uptake of these energy-saving measures depends heavily on government policy, according to analysis by Cambridge Econometrics, commissioned by Greenpeace.

Bloc must halve its food waste by 2030 to tackle climate crisis and improve food security, say campaigners

The EU wastes more food than it imports and could puncture food price inflation by simply curbing on-farm waste, according to a report.

About 153m tonnes of food in the EU are frittered away every year, double previous estimates and 15m tonnes more than is shipped in, according to the study’s estimates.

Scale of rise prompts warning Australia will struggle to cut emissions if Labor revamp allows new coal and gas

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Greenhouse gas emissions from gas and oil extraction in Australia rose 20% in the five years after the 2016 introduction of the safeguard mechanism, a policy supposed to stop increases.

The scale of the emissions growth, revealed in a new analysis by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), has prompted a warning that the Albanese government will struggle to cut industrial emissions if its planned revamp of the mechanism continues to allow new coal and gas developments.

With stealth followed by speedy acrobatics, Euryopis umbilicata can successfully catch banded sugar ants twice its size

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A mid-air cartwheel, the judicious use of sticky silk and a quick rappel down a tree, all in the blink of an eye: researchers have identified how the Australian ant-slayer spider captures prey twice its size.

The acrobatic behaviour of the Australian ant-slayer spider, Euryopis umbilicata, as it hunts and eats banded sugar ants has been documented by scientists for the first time.

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Meeting with Ranil Jayawardena comes amid concern government could scrap nature recovery goals

The head of Natural England and the chair of England’s largest landowners’ organisation are to meet the new environment secretary to urge him not to scrap or water down rewilding schemes.

Tony Juniper, who will meet Ranil Jayawardena along with the CLA chair Mark Tufnell on Tuesday, pointed out that swathes of prime land were being used for golf courses, housing and other infrastructure but political focus was on the small amount that would be rewilded.