The Guardian

The government is trying to wish away problems such as flooding by doing nothing. It’s incompetence by design

We have a new term for doing nothing: “learning to live with”. Learning to live with Covid means abandoning testing, isolation and wearing masks in public places. Living with it, dying from it, what’s the difference? The same applies to climate breakdown. It’s not just that countries like the UK have failed to play their part in preventing this catastrophe. They have also failed to prepare for it.

While our primary effort should still be to decarbonise our economies, to prevent even worse impacts, we also need to brace ourselves for the heating that’s now unavoidable. But, as the government’s climate change committee points out, adaptation in the UK is “under-resourced, underfunded and often ignored”. The head of the committee has spoken of a “wilful reluctance” to include adaptation in policymaking.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist. He will discuss Regenesis at a Guardian Live event on Monday 30 May. Book tickets in-person or online here

The Morrison government touts their climate credentials but analysts say following Australia’s path would see 3C or more of global heating

• Temperature Check is a weekly column examining claims about climate change made by governments, politicians, business and in the media. See the latest column and follow the series here
  

If the rest of the world followed Australia’s “leadership” on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and reaching net zero, what would that mean? This was the question we were left to ponder after the assistant energy minister, Tim Wilson, defended the Morrison government’s record this week after the latest UN climate assessment was released.

“We need global emissions to come down, which means we need other countries to follow our leadership in making sure they take decisions and back them in,” Wilson told the ABC, while criticising the UK and China for “backsliding” and a lack of commitment on targets.

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It seems the fossil fuel industry has more influence on government decisions that affect children than our public health research does

Why are Australia’s doctors and health researchers pushing so hard for climate change action as we move towards a federal election?

Global warming is an unprecedented practical and ethical challenge to the health sector in Australia and around the world which demands urgent action.

Analysis: betting big on nuclear, hydrogen, oil and gas while passing over energy saving measures, Johnson’s plan is a huge missed opportunity

Government industrial strategies are often derided as attempts to pick winners. The UK’s Conservative government has taken a different approach with its new energy strategy. In terms of dealing with the energy bill and climate crises, it’s picking losers.

It is crystal clear that transforming the energy efficiency of the nation’s draughty homes should be the No 1 priority. After all, the cheapest, cleanest energy is the energy you no longer use and nothing can be installed faster than insulation.

Plan will not please environmental campaigners, who say it fails to meet government’s net-zero targets

Boris Johnson is to put nuclear energy at the heart of the UK’s new energy strategy, but ministers have refused to set targets for onshore wind and vowed to continue the exploitation of North Sea oil and gas.

Amid deep divisions among senior Conservatives, the strategy will enrage environmentalists, who say the government’s plans are in defiance of its own net-zero targets and neglect alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills.

Increasing nuclear capacity from 7 gigawatts to 24GW

Offshore wind target raised from 40GW to 50GW (from 11GW today)

Solar could grow five times from 14GW to 70GW by 2035

An “impartial” review into whether fracking is safe

Up to 10GW of hydrogen power by 2030

On Wednesday, I risked arrest by locking myself onto an entrance to the JP Morgan Chase building in downtown LA. I can’t stand by – and nor should you

“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels.” – United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres

I’m a climate scientist and a desperate father. How can I plead any harder? What will it take? What can my colleagues and I do to stop this catastrophe unfolding now all around us with such excruciating clarity?

Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist and author based in Los Angeles

Groundbreaking report is first to assign responsibility for damage caused by 160 countries in past 50 years

The US and Europe are responsible for the majority of global ecological damage caused by the overuse of natural resources, according to a groundbreaking study.

The paper is the first to analyse and assign responsibility for the ecological damage caused by 160 countries over the last half century.

Using windfarms would be an easy, quick, cheap and actually popular way to solve the energy bill crisis

After Friday’s huge jump in energy costs, millions of people across the UK face a frightening future. Urgent measures are needed but, instead of taking action, the cabinet is absorbed in a pointless argument that wrongly pits the energy bill crisis against our climate commitments. In reality, the best way of bringing down bills is to get off gas for good.

We can take immediate steps to stop using gas because the UK has clean energy sources that can get going quickly, and are cheap and popular – wind and solar in particular. But at a time when they should be powering up the UK with renewables, ministers have other ideas: suggesting deepening our reliance on fossils fuels by opening up more drilling in the UK; or labouring under the misapprehension that people would rather live near a nuclear power plant than a wind turbine.

Alethea Warrington is campaigns manager for the climate crisis charity Possible

The new IPCC report offers not only hope, but practical solutions. Governments that have signed off on it must now act

Amid the triple crisis of the war in Ukraine, the still-raging pandemic and escalating inflation, climate scientists have just pulled off a truly impressive achievement. They have stood firm and persuaded the world’s governments to agree to a common guide to solving the climate emergency. Despite the despair of mounting global problems, the release of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows some grounds for hope.

After the recent reports on the causes and effects of climate change, this one covers solutions – with a summary signed off by the world’s governments. The summary is blunt and clear, and in many places acknowledges realities that scientists and campaigners have known for years but governments often avoided directly admitting.

Simon Lewis is professor of global change science at University College London and University of Leeds

Pressured by Tory right, minister to announce gas-heavy energy strategy with little emphasis on insulation

The UK government is set to order more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea in defiance of its own net zero targets, while neglecting alternative measures that experts say would provide much quicker relief from high energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions instead of raising them.

The energy security strategy to be unveiled on Thursday will acknowledge the need to move away from fossil fuels, the Guardian understands, but still allow for licences to explore new oil and gas fields to be expedited and more production from existing North Sea fields.

A review of the scientific advice on the safety of fracking. The Guardian understands that Kwarteng thinks fracking in the UK is unrealistic and uneconomic, but under pressure from the right will keep the option open.

Doubling the target on the use of hydrogen, from 5GW to 10GW, of which half will come from “blue” hydrogen created from fossil fuels, despite evidence that it emits more carbon than coal. Ministers are expected to present blue hydrogen as a necessary bridge to future “green” hydrogen from renewable energy, but campaigners say it will lock in high emissions.

A boost to offshore wind, with the expansion of existing coastal offshore windfarms and potential new floating platforms in deeper waters, but solar energy risks being missed.

Investment in new nuclear reactors being made easier.

Few new measures on ramping up heat pumps and no comprehensive national programme to insulate housing on the scale experts say is feasible and would make a real difference to the cost of living.

Just Stop Oil campaigners have blockaded the Navigator oil terminal in Essex in the aim of cutting off region’s fuel supply

Activists who aim to choke off the supply of petrol to south-east England have occupied the region’s busiest oil terminal.

Supporters of the Just Stop Oil campaign used telescopic ladders to climb over the fence at Navigator oil terminal in Thurrock, Essex, at 3am on Wednesday morning after trekking along the banks of the Thames to reach the rear of the site.

Particles discovered in tissue of 11 out of 13 patients undergoing surgery, with polypropylene and PET most common

Microplastic pollution has been discovered lodged deep in the lungs of living people for the first time. The particles were found in almost all the samples analysed.

The scientists said microplastic pollution was now ubiquitous across the planet, making human exposure unavoidable and meaning “there is an increasing concern regarding the hazards” to health.

Rise leads to suspicion that those who wish to kill birds of prey have cottoned on to impact of brodifacoum

A highly toxic rat poison is killing increasing numbers of birds of prey, figures show, as wildlife campaigners call for its use to be banned outdoors.

Most recently, a white-tailed eagle was found poisoned by the anticoagulant brodifacoum on an estate in Dorset. Police closed the investigation into the eagle death last week with no charges issued.

I know this seems like a terrible time to argue that anything should be more expensive. But for the sake of farmers, cows and the planet, this is one price that needs to rise

Here is just a small list of things I think should be prohibitively expensive: imported flowers, leaf blowers, portable speakers, Frank Sinatra albums and bleach. Here is a list of things I think should be free: childcare, access to woodland, water in pubs, healthcare, ketchup at chip shops and lateral flow tests. And somewhere between the two sits milk.

Michael Oakes, chair of the national dairy board of the National Farmers’ Union, told the Today programme this week that rising costs in fuel, fertilisers and animal feed have made dairy farming unsustainable for many people in the UK. Farmers are leaving the sector, getting into terrible debt and worse. As a result of these rising costs, we are likely to see an increase in the price of milk, as well as butter, cheese, yoghurt and everything else that would make up about 85% of my four-year-old son’s diet if he had his way. While this is obviously going to be a huge issue for people on low incomes – especially parents and older people with mid-century appetites – it is also perhaps time. I don’t want to walk into a bear fight covered in honey here but, like many people, I believe that farmers should be paid fairly, supermarkets shouldn’t be able to squeeze every drop of profit out of food producers and more of us should start to see milk – all dairy – as a luxury.

Nell Frizzell is the author of The Panic Years, out now through Bantam Press. Arwa Mahdawi is away

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The party hopes to win over Tory voters at the local elections disgusted with inaction over sewage dumping in rivers

Sewage has become a major battleground in the local elections in so-called “blue wall” seats, where the Liberal Democrats are challenging the Conservatives, from Guildford to Cambridgeshire.

The Lib Dems have put eliminating sewage dumps at the heart of their campaign, with the party leader, Ed Davey, planning to launch their fight at the River Wandle in Wimbledon on Wednesday. He is calling for a tax on sewage companies to fund the clean up of local rivers, which can see waste pumped out into the environment when there is heavy rainfall.

Calls for report to be released before election so voters know ‘official state’ of environment under Morrison government

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The Morrison government has been accused of sitting on a major report card on the state of Australia’s environment it received more than three months ago to avoid “more bad news”.

Labor, the Greens, the independent MP Zali Steggall, environment groups and scientists have called on the government to release the Australia State of the Environment report, which is produced by scientists and compiled every five years.

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Scientists’ concerns come as Jacob Rees-Mogg declared ‘every last drop of oil from the North Sea’ should be exploited

The UK government is moving too slowly to tackle the climate emergency, leading scientists have said in the wake of the latest IPCC report.

This comes after Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit minister, declared that he supported “exploiting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea” the day the report was released.

Conservatives seek to examine latest techniques, citing rising energy costs

Ministers have paved the way for a reconsideration of the moratorium on fracking by announcing they have commissioned a study to look at fresh evidence about the controversial practice.

In an effort to decrease Britain’s reliance on imported energy given spiralling energy costs – caused partly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, insisted it was “absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources”.

Experts say criticism of oil and gas’s ‘climate-blocking activities’ cut from final draft, reflective of industry’s power and influence

The fossil fuel industry and its influence over policy was the major elephant in the room looming over the release of the third and final report, out this week, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading climate authority. The major source of contention: how do you talk about mitigating climate change without confronting the fossil fuel industry? “It’s like Star Wars without Darth Vader,” says environmental sociologist Robert Brulle, of Brown University.

The first two reports, both released over the last year, highlighted the physical science on climate effects and countries’ vulnerability to further warming. But this third report deals more with the potential solutions, which have been a focal point of controversy in recent years for both the fossil fuel industry and the governments of oil-rich nations.

This story is published as part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of news outlets strengthening coverage of the climate story