The Guardian

The transition to heat pumps will affect almost every household in the UK, but it won’t work without public support

The government has finally handed in its climate homework. Less than a fortnight before hosting the Cop26 climate summit – arguably the most important meeting in human history – the new net zero strategy is supposed to tell us how the UK will go from long-term hand-waving to now-term problem-solving.

There is both a lot in there, and not enough. Until the government’s official advisers give their assessment we won’t know for sure if the plan stands a good chance of achieving legal carbon targets through to 2037. If you want a simple headline for now, I’d offer this: we’re pointing in the right direction, but setting off at a jog. Physics demands we sprint.

Max Wakefield is the director of campaigns for the climate action group Possible

We envision two scenarios: what life could look like in 2050 if we do nothing, and what life could look like if we take action now. Watch this video to take a glimpse into the future and find out what you can do to prevent global climate catastrophe. There is still hope 

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The data send a ‘stark’ message to the nations tasked with increasing action at the Cop26 climate summit, UN meteorology chief says

Levels of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere hit record levels in 2020, despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization has announced.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is now 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution sparked the mass burning of fossil fuels. Methane levels have more than doubled since 1750. All key greenhouse gases (GHG) rose faster in 2020 than the average for the previous decade and this trend has continued in 2021, the WMO report found.

Care work – paid and unpaid – has huge knock-on effects for the climate that can no longer be ignored

It is no coincidence that both care and our climate are in crisis. Addressing each requires us to recognise that we are vulnerable and interdependent, as a species and individually. This will only become more apparent, because – as the world gets hotter and consequently more dangerous – we are going to need to care for each other more than ever before. As initiatives including Naomi Klein’s The Leap and the Feminist Green New Deal have explained, we need a care-centred approach to meet the demands of a future that looks very different to our past.

First, we must broaden our understanding of what constitutes a “green job”. Research by the Feminist Green New Deal has found that a majority of people identify solar panel installers as green workers, but far fewer consider care workers to be in the same camp. This shows us something important about our mindset. So far, we have thought in terms of greening highly polluting industries – turning from fossil fuels to renewables – rather than identifying what is simply green, ie what is low-carbon by nature. This is the difference between tweaking our current system and stepping into a new approach that makes different kinds of work central to our economy. From this perspective, care work becomes a core component of our future, as those calling for its inclusion in a green new deal have advocated.

Emily Kenway is a writer and author of The Truth About Modern Slavery

Dozens of environmental activists obstruct traffic across financial district in east London

Insulate Britain has targeted Canary Wharf in London as the environmental group renews its roadblock campaign after a pause.

Demonstrators obstructed Limehouse Causeway at the junction with the A1206 at 8.20am on Monday. Others targeted Liverpool Street, Bishopsgate and Upper Thames Street.

Six things the Guardian is doing to confront the climate emergency

In 2019, the Guardian made a pledge in service of the planet. We declared that the escalating climate crisis was the defining issue of our lifetime, and that quality, trustworthy reporting on the environment was a vital tool to confront it. We promised to provide journalism that showed leadership, urgency, authority and give the climate emergency the sustained attention and prominence it demanded.

Two years later, we are updating our readers and supporters on our work – journalism that puts pressure on the decision-makers who hold our fate in their hands, and institutional commitments designed to ensure that we practice what we preach.

No more cartoons about climate change or genocidal cruelty or dead-eyed greed or global disinformation cults

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Study finds species stay longer in European breeding grounds and spend less time in Africa

Migratory birds including the willow warbler, the garden warbler and the nightingale may eventually stop flying south for the winter as they spend longer in their European breeding grounds.

Analysis of more than 50 years of bird records from the Gambia and Gibraltar has found that some migratory species that cross the Sahara are spending between 50 and 60 fewer days on average in Africa each winter.

Net zero strategy should have defined what green jobs are so that progress can be measured, says committee

The government has come under fire from the environmental audit committee of MPs for its “inconsistent” policy on green jobs. The committee said that despite pledging millions of pounds to green jobs initiatives, ministers are yet to define what a “green job” is.

“The workforce of the future is being undermined by a lack of evidence-based government policies on how jobs will be filled in green sectors,” said Philip Dunne, the committee chairman. “Encouraging announcements of investment in green sectors of the economy are very welcome but the government admits that claims about green jobs lack explanation and data on how the targets will be achieved.”

The decline of tropical reefs should alarm us. But there is reason to hope that they will adapt to survive

Coral reefs, like tropical rainforests, have a special place in natural history. Covering just 0.2% of the ocean floor, they are home to around a quarter of all sea species. Because of this fecundity, and their flamboyant array of colours, shapes and sizes, reefs are rightly understood as wonders of the world. Reports of their destruction carry a painful sting. Like images of the burning Amazon, pictures of bleached coral are disturbing – their whitened, empty forms a warning of nature’s wider decline.

There is now around half the amount of coral that there was in the 1950s, and the outlook is not good. Rising sea temperatures, coastal and marine developments, overfishing and pollution all expose these highly sensitive environments to acute stress.

Climate finance plan needed to gain backing of developing nations for any deal at Glasgow talks

Poorer countries are to be offered billions of dollars more in funding in an effort to break the impasse between developed and developing countries at the UN Cop26 climate summit.

The UK government, as Cop26 host, will unveil the proposals on Monday along with ministers from Germany and Canada, who have been charged with drawing up a plan for climate finance, needed to gain the backing of scores of developing countries for any deal at the talks, which open in Glasgow next Sunday.

There is no longer any population or place on earth untouched by PFAS contamination. We are living through a toxic experiment with no control group

This week the EPA announced a new roadmap to research, restrict, and remediate PFAS – a group of industrial “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer and are found in our food, water, and even our blood. President Biden is requesting $10bn in the infrastructure bill to address PFAS. But this new attention still falls short of what’s required to confront an unprecedented crisis that affects the health of the entire United States and countless people across the world.

Today, toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are everywhere we’ve thought to look for them. As engineered, these synthetic chemicals glide through air and water with ease, evade all natural processes of decay, and inflict debilitating injuries even at exceedingly low levels of exposure. The petrochemical industry has its fingerprints all over the ubiquity of PFAS, yet that very ubiquity is now being used as an excuse against doing anything about it. PFAS are becoming too toxic to fail.

All Londoners live above WHO’s recommended air quality levels. Expanding Ulez will mean fewer polluting vehicles

Air pollution is a global health crisis and tackling it is a crucial part of our response to the climate emergency. Toxic air is leading to premature deaths, making people sick, harming the health of our children and inflicting profound and lasting damage on our precious natural environment.

In a week’s time, leaders from around the world will meet at the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow to try to agree on the vital action we need to protect our planet and to save lives. Health professionals will be attending the conference in record numbers, including a group of paediatricians who are cycling from London’s famous Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children to raise awareness of the devastating effect of air pollution on children’s health, including stunted lung growth.

Sadiq Khan is mayor of London. Dr Maria Neira is WHO director, Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health

Fresh wave of direct action is planned before Cop26 summit opens

Climate protest group Insulate Britain has revealed its “absolute disbelief” that its members have been allowed to repeatedly disrupt the motorway network, saying it had originally expected its campaign of direct action to last just two days.

As the group prepares for a fresh wave of protests this week, organisers admit they are baffled over why the police have effectively allowed them to keep closing major routes.

In the run-up to the global summit in Glasgow, we revisit families with children – now teenagers – born at the time of the 2009 climate conference

They are entering their teenage years and aspire to bring about positive change when they grow up. But the dreams of these three children, each born in different corners of the world in the weeks leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, are beset by worries of how global heating might shape their futures.

Following their births, and again in 2015 ahead of the Paris climate summit, the Observer heard from the families of Maria, Olomaina and Denislania about how they were coping with the impacts of climate change.

Top climate official issues strong warning on effect of unchecked greenhouse gases ahead of summit

Global security and stability could break down, with migration crises and food shortages bringing conflict and chaos, if countries fail to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, the UN’s top climate official has warned ahead of the Cop26 climate summit.

Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said: “We’re really talking about preserving the stability of countries, preserving the institutions that we have built over so many years, preserving the best goals that our countries have put together. The catastrophic scenario would indicate that we would have massive flows of displaced people.”

Converting every vehicle to electric by 2035 would halve costs, Australian Conservation Foundation report finds

Australia may be left with almost a $1tn health bill by 2050 if it doesn’t boost the take-up of electric vehicles, according to a new report released on Sunday.

But this could be slashed in half by setting an ambitious target to convert every car in the country to electric by 2035.

Beachfront residents back the Collaroy wall but other locals worry the beach will disappear for longer periods as climate change increasingly drives coastal erosion

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“We really didn’t want to build a wall,” says Bob Orth.

But Orth is one of 10 residents of Collaroy, on Sydney’s northern beaches, who have each paid $300,000 to do just that.

A 1.3km long wall that will snake along the coast of Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches is dividing a community. Construction on a 400m concrete section of the wall commenced in December 2020, more than four years after a heavy storm washed away the shore and damaged beachside properties. Its design has split opinion, with concerns it is destroying public space to save private property

Chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee condemns New Zealand and Australia agreements as unworkable

The chairman of the government’s climate change advisory board has condemned trade deals with Australia and New Zealand as “totally offensive” as he warned they would undermine attempts to tackle emissions.

Lord Deben, the former Tory cabinet minister who chairs the Climate Change Committee, said that the agreements were “entirely unacceptable for climate change purposes”. He warned they would damage efforts to ask UK farmers to help consumers shift to eating less meat, but of higher quality.