The Guardian

Forty-nine members of Insulate Britain have been arrested after the climate activist group blocked three major junctions in defiance of a series of injunctions banning them from protesting anywhere on England’s strategic road network.

The group is calling on the government to commit to insulating all Britain’s homes by 2030 as a first step to tackling the climate crisis. 

According to the group’s estimates, 146 members have been arrested 690 times since 13 September

• Insulate Britain protests: 49 arrests as group defies injunctions

The Guardian understands the funding is likely to be used to back the planned £20bn Sizewell C

The government will make its first direct investment in a large-scale nuclear reactor since 1995 after pledging to plough up to £1.7bn of taxpayers’ money into a new power plant.

Treasury documents published alongside the autumn statement did not name which nuclear project would be in line for the public funds, but the Guardian understands it is most likely to be the planned £20bn Sizewell C plant in Suffolk.

Members stage roadblock protests near M25 Dartford Crossing in Kent and on A40 in west London

Forty-nine members of Insulate Britain have been arrested after the climate activist group blocked three major junctions in defiance of a series of injunctions banning them from protesting anywhere on England’s strategic road network.

In their 15th day of action since starting their campaign in mid-September, members of the group staged roadblock protests near the M25 Dartford crossing in Kent and another on the A40 in West London.

Figure of £150-660bn to cut raw sewage discharges into rivers was quoted by Tory MPs and environment minister

Government claims that cutting the millions of hours a year of raw sewage being discharged into rivers by water companies would cost up to £660bn have been challenged by experts.

On Tuesday night, peers kept the pressure on the government to enshrine a duty in law on water companies to reduce the dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas.

Despite the government’s injunction against us, we’re pressing on with our campaign to insulate all UK homes by 2030

• Cameron Ford is an Insulate Britain campaigner

I was lost for words when a radio presenter, someone responsible for informing the public, recently told me that you can grow concrete. I had been invited on to talkRadio to speak about being a part of Insulate Britain, and was instead asked about my job (I’m a carpenter), and whether cutting down trees is “sustainable” (I pointed out that, unlike concrete, trees grow back). The internet has erupted in laughter at the one-minute clip, but what’s not funny is the government’s pitiful support for home insulation.

Insulating homes is an essential part of our transition to net zero. This is why Insulate Britain is going ahead with protests despite the government’s nationwide injunction against our campaign. Today, campaigners blocked major roads connecting the M25. We have a simple demand: insulate all UK homes by 2030 to cut carbon emissions and end fuel poverty.

Cameron Ford is a carpenter and Insulate Britain campaigner

With her brave book Silent Spring, Carson changed the course of US environmental history. We would do well to study her example

“Glasgow is our last chance” has become a climate crisis mantra.

World leaders scheduled to meet soon at the United Nations Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow to discuss – and act upon – our global climate crisis face a huge task, as do those here in the US as they fine-tune the climate measures in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan. All political measures up to now have been insufficient. The latest UN report on climate change issued a “code red for humanity”. And it’s only going to get worse and probably irreversible – larger fires, extended droughts, more intense storms, and more environmental refugees, destabilized regimes and unlivable parts of our planet – if our carbon-based economy continues unabated.

A frequent contributor to the Guardian, Kim Heacox is the author of many books, including The Only Kayak, a memoir, and Jimmy Bluefeather, a novel, both winners of the National Outdoor Book Award. He lives in Alaska

Then the most remarkable thing happened

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Cop26 is a chance for developed countries to take the lead in cutting emissions and making good on financial promises

• Zheng Zeguang is Chinese ambassador to the UK

In the run-up to the climate conference in Glasgow, there are suggestions that without real participation and greater contribution from China, neither the conference nor the global response to climate change will get anywhere. The unstated worry is this: will China honour its pledges to reduce emissions?

This anxiety is unnecessary. Anyone who knows China well is sure that my country is serious about reducing carbon emissions and pursuing green development, and that we mean what we say.

Zheng Zeguang is the Chinese ambassador to the UK

Following the release of CNP’s National Parks and the Climate Emergency report in June, this year’s competition focused on documenting the climate crisis, with stark images of extreme weather, wildlife in decline and pollution accompanied by images of hope and nature recovery.

To see the full shortlist and stories behind the images, visit: www.cnp.org.uk

Some of the harshest criticism came from CNN, which labelled Australia ‘the rich world’s weakest link at COP26’

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The Australian government’s net zero by 2050 plan has been met with scepticism overseas, with major international media organisations labelling Scott Morrison’s announcement this week “hollow” and “hard to believe”.

Some of the harshest criticism came from CNN, which labelled Australia “the rich world’s weakest link at Cop26”. The broadcaster contrasted the Morrison government’s “defiant” climate plan against the US, UK and EU’s efforts to legislate net zero and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Apex predator is not a ‘mindless killer’ and a better understanding of why sharks bite humans could mitigate attacks, Australian researchers say

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On the rare occasion a great white shark attacks a human, the bite may be the result of mistaken identity, according to new research.

A study by Australian scientists suggests the apex predator may not be able to visually distinguish surfers and swimmers at the water’s surface from their natural prey.

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Scott Morrison’s government is counting on businesses and households to reduce emissions almost entirely as a result of their own voluntary initiative

• Australia’s net-zero emissions ‘plan’: the five things you should know

The Morrison government has now confirmed that it will target net zero emissions for Australia by 2050.

But, unlike Europe, the US and China, the Morrison government believes we’ll manage to reduce emissions to zero without implementing any legislation that either requires businesses to reduce their emissions or that of their products; or provides funding to pay these businesses to reduce their emissions at mass scale.

Aerial footage shows untreated sewage being pumped into Langstone Harbour in Hampshire from a nearby treatment plant. The sewage reportedly poured out for more than two days. 'I just couldn't believe what I was seeing,' said photographer Chris Pearsal, who shot the footage. 'It's happening right along our coastline, and it quite simply needs to stop.' 

There were 403,171 spills of sewage into England’s rivers and seas in 2020, according to the Environment Agency, adding up to over 3.1m hours of spillages. Last week, MPs voted down an amendment to the environment bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump waste into rivers.

• Sewage vote outcry prompts Tory MPs to defend decision on social media
• UK government U-turns on sewage after Tory MPs threaten rebellion
  
• Downing Street to oppose raw sewage amendment in standoff with Lords
  

Water companies will have duty to reduce impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows

The government has announced a partial U-turn over the sewage amendment after Tory rebels threatened to scupper an upcoming vote in the Commons.

Under new rules, there will be a duty on water companies to reduce the impact of sewage discharges from storm overflows. This means the organisations will be required by law to show a reduction in sewage overspills over the next five years.

Faced with extreme weather, voters in the 1970s responded to a government call to move to drier land. The same spirit of innovation is needed today

What should governments – and people – do, confronted by the terrifying force of nature? It is the question of our age. But one answer, found on mainland Europe, serves as a reminder of human ingenuity in the face of adversity. The Netherlands offers perhaps the most astonishing example of government intervention in the 20th century: acting to deal with North Sea surges, which not only cost lives but threatened food production. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee – a large, shallow North Sea inlet – and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water. What has been created since 1972 is a new region to the east of Amsterdam, called Flevoland, out of the sea in the form of two great polders – essentially flat fields of reclaimed marshland which together are about the size of the English county of Dorset.

These days Flevoland is a busy place: containing the country’s fastest growing city of Almere, the regional capital of Lelystad, and a vast nature reserve, Oostvaardersplassen. Half a century ago, all were submerged metres below sea level. The country’s youngest province is living proof of how humankind can live with the ever-changing elements. Michel van Hulten, one of Flevoland’s architects and a former Dutch minister, says some of the success of the area is down to the collectivist spirit of the early 1970s when voters instinctively trusted government. He points out that there were no tax incentives or state subsidies for people to move to what were then empty new towns. The public simply answered the government’s call as part of a national mission. The Low Countries remain ideologically and historically close to the UK. The problem is that today’s politics is marked by polarisation rather than solidarity.

Court action from Torres Strait leaders over Australia’s failure to cut emissions comes with an urgency that is impossible to overstate

With the UN climate summit now less than a week away, the Australian government is failing to meet even the exceptionally low expectations on climate action reserved for Australia’s political leaders. Although Scott Morrison’s government has announced a highly qualified net zero target, it has failed to address its manifestly inadequate carbon emissions reduction target for 2030 despite clear warnings from scientists that global emissions need to be halved in the next decade. Meanwhile leaked documents suggest Australian officials have been trying to delete references to phasing out coal-fired power stations from an upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

For Morrison, the UN summit and heightened international scrutiny of Australia’s abysmal federal climate policies cannot be over soon enough. However, there will be no escaping accountability for his government’s actions at home, as this week First Nations’ leaders from the Torres Strait have filed a groundbreaking court case challenging Australia’s failure to cut emissions and avert the destruction of their homes and communities.

Leaked draft reveals environmentally concerning products such as rubber and maize are excluded

An EU plan to limit the scope of a law to tackle deforestation is based on flawed data, according to scientists whose work was used by the European Commission.

In a critique of the commission’s data shared with the Guardian, four researchers say a decision to exclude rubber from the scope of the EU’s upcoming anti-deforestation law may be misguided.

Fund says it will no longer invest in sector and will sell €15bn of holdings by first quarter of 2023

One of the world’s largest pension funds, ABP, is selling its €15bn-worth of holdings in fossil fuel companies, including Royal Dutch Shell, claiming it had been unable to persuade the sector to transition quickly enough towards decarbonisation.

Corien Wortmann-Kool, the chair of ABP, the Dutch pension fund for civil servants and teachers, said it would no longer invest in producers of oil, gas and coal, and that it would dispense with its current investments in those sectors by the first quarter of 2023.

Climate Change Committee head Chris Stark explains what needs to happen for Britain to meet its targets

• UK net zero plan achievable and affordable, say climate advisers

Britain can get to net zero but time is short, says the head of the UK’s Climate Change Committee.

“We know enough now to say, confidently, that we can get to net zero and that’s not just a slogan,” Chris Stark, the chief executive of the CCC, told the Guardian by Zoom from Glasgow on the eve of Cop26.

Climate group makes declaration after transport secretary obtains injunction

Insulate Britain has declared the M25 a “site of non-violent civil resistance” and called for motorists to keep to 20mph on the motorway or avoid it altogether, after a new injunction banned the group from major roads across England.

It comes after Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, announced that England’s roads agency, National Highways, had obtained an injunction banning the group from protesting across England’s “entire strategic road network”.