The Guardian

Emergency requests by 27 states to pause rule requiring fossil fuel-powered plants to reduce emissions were denied

The US supreme court declined on Wednesday to put on hold a new federal rule targeting carbon pollution from coal- and gas-fired power plants at the request of numerous states and industry groups in another major challenge to Joe Biden’s efforts to combat the climate crisis.

The justices denied emergency requests by West Virginia, Indiana and 25 other states – most of them Republican-led – as well as power companies and industry associations, to halt the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule while litigation continues in a lower court. The regulation, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions that drive the climate crisis, took effect on 8 July.

Research suggests the marine animals are inhaling pollutants when they come up for air, with even rural populations affected

Microplastics have been found in dolphin breath for the first time, according to a study that suggests the marine mammals are inhaling the potentially harmful contaminants when they come up for air.

The US research team, whose preliminary findings are published in the journal, Plos One, are concerned about the potential impact of inhaled plastics on the animals’ lungs.

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd organisation faces extradition to Japan after arrest in Nuuk in July

Paul Watson, the anti-whaling activist detained in Greenland and awaiting possible extradition to Japan, has appealed to Emmanuel Macron for political asylum in France.

Watson was detained in July after a Japanese request to Interpol over his confrontational tactics aimed at disrupting whaling operations in the Antarctic, and could face up to 15 years in prison if he is extradited and convicted.

Exclusive: proposal to Cop16 could see ‘funga’ get global legal consideration distinct from flora and fauna

A new era of mycelial conservation could begin this month when the UK and Chile propose that fungi should be placed alongside animals and plants as a separate realm for environmental protection.

Mushrooms, mould, mildew, yeast and lichen would all receive elevated status under the plan, which will be submitted to the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD) during the Cop16 meeting in Cali, Colombia, which opens on 21 October.

Tech barons are forever predicting some amazing new technology to fix the climate crisis. Yet fixes already exist

There are so many ways to fiddle while Rome burns, or as this season’s weather would have it, gets torn apart by hurricanes and tornadoes and also goes underwater – and, in other places, burns. One particularly pernicious way comes from the men in love with big tech, who are forever insisting that we need some amazing new technology to solve our problems, be it geoengineering, carbon sequestration or fusion – but wait, it gets worse.

At an artificial intelligence conference in Washington DC, the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently claimed that “[w]e’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it” and that we should just plunge ahead with AI, which is so huge an energy hog it’s prompted a number of tech companies to abandon their climate goals. Schmidt then threw out the farfetched notion that we should go all in on AI because maybe AI will somehow, maybe, eventually know how to “solve” climate, saying: “I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it.”

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

Chris Bowen questions why gas companies who already produce energy should get windfall gain under opposition’s plan

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Labor says a Coalition pledge to offer subsidies to existing and new gas power plants makes “no sense” and would ensure fossil fuel plants that are already in the grid receive windfall gains.

In a speech to an Australian Pipelines and Gas Association Convention in Adelaide, the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said that gas would be “here to stay” under the Coalition.

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Bring in ‘future homes standard’ or leave families at risk of higher bills and emissions for decades, MPs and experts say

Ministers must take steps now to ensure that all homes are built to the most efficient low-carbon standards, or risk locking households into higher bills and greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, a group of MPs and experts have urged.

The government is mulling changes to the building regulations in England to bring in a “future homes standard” that would require all new homes to be built with low-carbon equipment such as heat pumps and solar panels.

International Energy Agency says transition to clean energy means there will be a surplus of oil, gas and coal

Fossil fuels could soon become significantly cheaper and more abundant as governments accelerate the transition to clean energy towards the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency.

The world’s energy watchdog has signalled a new energy era in which countries have access to more oil, gas and coal than needed to fuel their economic growth, leading to lower prices for households and businesses.

Surfers were seen catching waves near a suspected oil slick off the coast of Coogee in Sydney a day after hundreds of pieces of black debris washed up along the beach. The beach was closed and beachgoers warned not to touch the material, which could be 'tar balls' formed from oil spills or seepage at sea

• Suspected oil slick spotted off Sydney's Coogee beach after mysterious black balls wash ashore

These remarkable fish need clean rivers to breed in. Their decline highlights the collapse of environmental regulation

The collapse in the number of wild salmon in England and Wales is deeply dismaying. These fish are widely regarded as wonders of the natural world because of their extraordinary life cycle. This takes them thousands of miles out into the North Atlantic Ocean, before they return to our rivers – swimming and leaping upstream – to spawn.

Climate change and failures of marine conservation have contributed to the decline in numbers across their entire range, which extends from Russia to Portugal. But in Britain, the poor state of rivers is another obstacle to the species’ survival. As well as a warning of the global threat to biodiversity, their dwindling numbers are a reminder of the price paid for the repeated breaking of environmental law.

Investors say climate change poses biggest risk to their assets, and urge Albanese government to see the economic dangers of a slow path to net zero

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Institutional investors dealing with portfolios in the trillions of dollars aren’t typically the most vocal climate campaigners. You won’t find many superannuation fund staff, fund managers, asset consultants or brokers with a placard on the streets or on top of a Newcastle coal train.

But you may increasingly find them on a screen you’re watching. Or at least their message.

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Conservative ‘wish list’ of policies for a future Trump administration goes so far as transforming food and farming

When Project 2025 began making headlines this summer, it was largely for the ways the conservative “wish list” of policies for a future Trump administration would restructure the entire federal bureaucracy, deepen abortion restrictions and eliminate the Department of Education.

But the document – a proposed mandate for the next Republican president authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank – also outlines steps that would radically transform food and farming, curtailing recent progress to address the excess of ultra-processed foods in the United States. Among those: weakening the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), ending policies that consider the effects of climate change – and eliminating the US dietary guidelines.

UC San Diego has added an innovative prerequisite to ‘prepare students for the future they really will encounter’

Melani Callicott, a human biology major at the University of California, San Diego, thinks about the climate crisis all the time. She discusses it with family and friends because of the intensity of hurricanes like Milton and Helene, which have ravaged the southern US, she says. “It just seems like it’s affecting more people every day.”

That’s one reason why she is glad that UC San Diego has implemented an innovative graduation requirement for students starting this autumn: a course in climate change. Courses must cover at least 30% climate-related content and address two of four areas, including scientific foundations, human impacts, mitigation strategies, and project-based learning. About 7,000 students from the class of 2028 will be affected this year.

Exclusive: EA warns it lacks budget to tackle England’s rising number of potential ‘forever chemicals’ locations

The number of sites identified as potentially having been polluted with banned cancer-causing “forever chemicals” in England is on the rise, and the Environment Agency (EA) says it does not have the budget to deal with them.

A former RAF airfield in Cambridgeshire and a fire service college in the Cotswolds have joined a chemicals plant in Lancashire and a fire protection equipment supplier in North Yorkshire on the agency’s list of “problem sites” for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Residents and marine scientists unable to identify pale masses, as myriad theories are blown out of the water

They are slimy on the outside, firm and spongy on the inside and surprisingly combustible. And in recent months, they have been washing up on the shores of Newfoundland.

The depths of the Atlantic have long held mysteries, but the riddle of the mysterious white “blobs” spotted on the beaches of the eastern Canadian province has baffled both residents and marine scientists.

As he travels along the Iranian coast, Khashayar Javanmardi photographs rusting ships, blazing wetland fires – and humans struggling to stay alive

Countries promised to save 30% of land and sea for nature - but as their deadline approaches, only 24 have followed through with a plan

More than 80% of countries have failed to submit plans to meet a UN agreement to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, new analysis has found.

Nearly two years ago, the world struck a once-in-a-decade deal in Montreal, Canada, that included targets to protect 30% of land and sea for nature, reform billions of dollars on environmentally harmful subsidies and slash pesticide usage. Countries committed to submit their plans for meeting the agreement before the biodiversity Cop16 in Cali, Colombia, which begins this month – but only 25 countries have done so.

Energy crisis panel warns country is ‘dangerously unprepared’ and must shift away from gas quickly

Britain is at risk of experiencing a repeat of the sharp increase in energy costs which has fuelled the continuing cost of living crisis because it relies too heavily on gas, according to an expert panel of industry leaders.

The Energy Crisis Commission has warned that the UK is still “dangerously underprepared” for another crisis because it continues to rely on gas for its power plants and home heating.

A US study estimates the total climate pollution from LNG was 33% greater than that from coal over a 20-year period. This should have major ramifications for emissions policy

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The claim that Australian gas exports are “clean” and needed to drive the transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions has become an article of faith for significant parts of the country’s industry, media and political classes – often repeated, only occasionally challenged.

It has buttressed a massive expansion of the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry in the north of the continent over the past decade, with major new developments in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

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Data compiled by EEA shows quality of water bodies falls far short of target first set for 2015 and since extended to 2027

Only about one-third of Europe’s surface water is in good health or better, a report has found, despite an EU target first set for 2015 to bring all bodies of water up to good quality.

About 37% of Europe’s surface waters qualified as having at least a good ecological status and 29% a good chemical status in 2021, according to data from 19 member countries compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The original deadline for the EU target has been extended to 2027 but data suggests this is on track to be missed by a wide margin.