The Guardian

Treaty allows energy corporations to sue governments for billions over policies that could hurt their profits

• Explainer: what is the ECT?

A secretive investor court system poses a real threat to the Paris climate agreement, activists have said, as governments taking action to phase out fossil fuels face a slew of multimillion-dollar lawsuits for lost profits.

New data seen by the Guardian shows a surge in cases under the energy charter treaty (ECT), an obscure international agreement that allows energy corporations to sue governments over policies that could hurt their profits.

Biologists heartened as 79 nests of endangered reptile recorded in Broward county this year after low of 12 in 2017.

The number of leatherback turtle nests found along some south Florida beaches reached record numbers this year, surprising biologists.

The 79 nests laid by endangered turtles along beaches in Broward county this year is nearly double the previous record, according to the South Florida SunSentinel. The previous record was 46 in 2012, and the record low for leatherback nests was 12 in 2017.

The Guardian’s picture editors select recent images from UN climate change conference

UK among countries at Cop26 vowing to divert funds to low-carbon energy from 2022

• Cop26 – live coverage

More than 20 countries and financial institutions will halt all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and divert the spending to green energy instead from next year.

The move marks a significant boost for the transition to clean fuels. The Guardian understands the countries involved include the US, UK, Denmark and some developing countries that would receive such finance, including Costa Rica. The European Investment Bank is one of the financial institutions involved.

Climate activists were removed from a Rishi Sunak photo opportunity after questioning the chancellor on government deals with fossil fuel companies.

Fatima Ibrahim, the co-founder of the UK's Green New Deal movement, posted the moment on Twitter. 'Is he that scared of young people asking him questions?', she wrote

• COP26 summit: latest updates

Summit president’s comments on finance day accused of trying to commercialise climate activism

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and president of the Cop26 summit, has been accused of appropriating the climate activism movement after he told conference delegates “you are the new Swampys”.

Opening the summit’s finance day, which aims to channel cash towards transitioning global economies to net zero carbon emissions, Sharma recalled climate protests of the 1990s.

University of Melbourne research suggests India’s plans could make sizeable difference to projections

• What is Cop26 and why does it matter? The complete guide

The pledges on greenhouse gas emissions on the tablet at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow would limit global temperature rises to below 2C, the first time the world has been on such a trajectory, according to research.

Plans by India, the world’s third biggest emitter, have made a sizeable difference to the global temperature estimate, research by the University of Melbourne has found.

Trip to Glasgow was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep emissions cuts – and ended with him blaming China and Russia

Joe Biden returned to the US in the pre-dawn gloom on Wednesday to a climate agenda still held in frustrating limbo by Congress, following his high-profile cameo at crunch UN climate talks in Scotland that was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep cuts to planet-heating emissions.

The US president had aimed to arrive in Glasgow for the Cop26 summit with historic climate legislation in hand, which he could use to brandish at world leaders who still harbor resentments over four turbulent years of Donald Trump, where the climate crisis was variously ignored and mocked.

With more than a third of the country’s greenhouse gases coming from farming, Dublin faces huge pressure over reduction aims

Up to 1.3 million cattle would have to be culled in Ireland to reach anticipated government targets for reducing greenhouse gases in the agriculture sector, a new report has concluded.

Irish farmers are expecting the worst after taoiseach Micheál Martin described the report by KPMG, commissioned by weekly newspaper the Irish Farmers Journal, as “scaremongering”.

The debate over agriculture’s role in reducing carbon emissions is a hugely controversial topic in Ireland, pitting Dublin against rural communities.

The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said he hopes to ‘rewire the entire financial system’ to put it to use to protect the climate. Outlining Britain's strategy over the next five years to the Cop26 climate summit, he said the UK would become the world’s first ever net-zero-aligned financial centre. This means companies will have a mandatory duty to set out their pathway to net zero, he has said

• Cop26 – live updates

Fast food boxes and wrappers contain toxic chemicals known to interfere with our reproductive systems and contribute to attention and learning disorders

It’s no surprise that fast food is generally bad for your health. But now there’s a new reason to worry: according to a new study out of George Washington University, fast-food containers (such as wrappers used for burgers and burritos) contain toxic chemicals known to interfere with our reproductive systems and contribute to attention and learning disorders. Put simply, our hamburgers and burritos are wrapped in toxic waste.

Many convenience foods come with an ingredient list showing consumers what went into the product they’re eating or drinking. Of course, this list doesn’t include the chemicals used to make the box, bag or wrapper encasing the food, or other materials that come into contact with our meal – like the plastic gloves used to handle the sandwich toppings. But these compounds make their way into our food and we ingest them.

Norah MacKendrick is an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University and the author of Better Safe Than Sorry: How Consumers Navigate Everyday Toxics

The US constitutional system could pose a major obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats. A new set of cases shows why

President Joe Biden exhorted other world leaders to treat climate change as an “existential threat to human existence” at the Cop26 global climate summit on Monday. Yet his administration may soon have its hands tied as it seeks to address that threat at home. That’s because just three days earlier, the US supreme court agreed to hear a set of cases challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose carbon emissions limits on existing power plants.

Court watchers expect the court’s conservative majority, consistent with a string of rulings in favor of big business and against regulation, to side against the EPA. If so, the decision will highlight how the court could stand in the way of meaningful efforts to address the climate crisis for decades to come. More generally, that outcome would underscore how the supreme court and broader features of the US constitutional system pose a significant obstacle to addressing catastrophic threats.

Daniel Epps is Treiman professor of law at Washington University in St Louis. He previously served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy and co-hosts the supreme court podcast Divided Argument

The chancellor says London will become the world’s first net zero finance centre. Follow the latest from Glasgow here

UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has arrived at the conference centre bearing a green version of the traditionally red Budget briefcase.

He’ll be speaking shortly about the UK’s plans to move the financial system towards net zero. If you want to watch him speak, you can find a live stream here.

It really is this simple. We have the technology required to replace fossil fuels. There’s plenty of money, which is currently being squandered on the destruction of life on Earth. The transition could take place in months, if governments willed it. The only thing that stands in the way is the power of legacy industries and the people who profit from them.

From a six-year-old emissions commitment to Boris Johnson’s non-binding breakthroughs, Australia’s lack of ambition was on full display

There weren’t many silver linings for Scott Morrison in his extraordinary skirmish with Emmanuel Macron, but one may be that it has distracted public attention from the prime minister’s threadbare performance at the Glasgow climate summit.

As Morrison and other leaders flew home from the ongoing talks on Tuesday, observers were tallying up what the prime minister had committed to do at a meeting billed as the best, last chance to deal with the climate crisis. It didn’t take long.

This greenwashing tactic has failed – to pursue it now would be to blow a huge hole in the Paris agreement

• Jennifer Morgan is executive director of Greenpeace International

From the signing of the United Nations framework convention on climate change in 1992, to the first Conference of the Parties in 1995, to this week’s Cop26, we have heard many words from world leaders, but have not seen anywhere enough action. To undo the damage caused by this lack of commitment, the world needs to sign up to some big things. For starters, that means a rapid end to the era of fossil fuels, with an immediate halt to all new fossil fuel projects. And it means ambitious emission-cutting plans from every country to halve global emissions by 2030, with rich countries moving fastest.

In 1992, all countries not only agreed to the UN framework’s objective to “protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity”, but also that developed countries “take the lead” as they bore the heaviest responsibility for historic emissions. Based on equity, richer countries should live up to the commitment to move fastest to meet the 1.5C goal, and the phasing out of fossil fuels should be accompanied by support for workers, Indigenous peoples and all affected communities. A fossil fuel phase-out would deliver energy independence and a more secure economic future, creating millions of stable, well-paid jobs in green, hi-tech renewable energy. Just witness the crisis caused by the recent hike in wholesale gas prices to see where dependence on fossil fuels takes us.

Jennifer Morgan is executive director of Greenpeace International

Living Language Land includes Namibian bushman’s word for ‘magical journey’ and one from Philippines to denote ‘a forest within a forest’

Western leaders at the Cop26 climate summit have been urged to embrace a far more holistic view of humanity’s place in the natural world by an art project celebrating indigenous minority languages.

The Living Language Land project has identified 25 words from minority languages and dialects around the world – including Native American Lakota, Murui, a native language of Colombian and Peru, and Scots Gaelic – that highlight each culture’s ties to their land.

Everyone knows that the people inside that building are not going to be the ones who solve the climate crisis

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The handwaving and complexity obscure a simple truth: nation states must stop funding dirty industries

In some respects, preventing climate breakdown is highly complicated. But in another, it’s really simple: we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. All the bluster and grandstanding, the extravagant promises and detailed mechanisms discussed in Glasgow this week amount to nothing if this simple and obvious thing doesn’t happen.

A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests that to stand a 50% chance of avoiding more than 1.5C of global heating, we need to retire 89% of proven coal reserves, 58% of oil reserves and 59% of fossil methane (“natural gas”) reserves. If we want better odds than 50-50, we’ll need to leave almost all of them untouched.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Cop26 and a greener future, with George Monbiot. Join a Guardian Live online event on climate justice on Thursday 4 November at 8pm. Tickets at gu.com/guardianlive

Unclear if ‘Freya’ is conducting protest lie-in or just waylaid, though Dutch navy note her choice of ‘Walrus-class submarine’

The disruption from the climate emergency being experienced by marine wildlife reached a new high in the first week of Cop26, when a female walrus was discovered sleeping on a submarine in a naval base in North Holland.

Walruses normally live in the polar regions – several hundred miles north. This particular animal is one of at least two of the species that have been seen far from their Arctic habitat. Another wandering walrus, seen off the Scilly Islands, France, Spain and West Cork, Ireland, has since been sighted back in Icelandic waters.

World Economic Forum says taxing carbon emitters would cost less than economic fallout from climate crisis

Creating an international price for carbon emissions could reduce global greenhouse gases by 12% at a cost of less than 1% of global GDP, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) and PwC.

The report found that if global governments agreed together to set a price for pollution to help cut carbon emissions the cost would be less than the economic losses triggered by the fallout of a runaway climate crisis.