The Guardian

Sites currently only tested for dangerous pollution during ‘bathing season’ from May to September

Bathing waters in England and Wales could be tested all year round in a government shake-up to water pollution rules.

At the moment, designated bathing sites are only tested for dangerous pollution that could make swimmers sick during the “bathing season”, which runs from May to September.

PM says Britain can ‘win the race’ as Trump’s election casts doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change

Britain has a “huge opportunity” to get ahead of other countries in the race for green investment after the election of Donald Trump as US president, Keir Starmer has said, as he arrives in Azerbaijan for the Cop29 summit.

Trump’s election victory last week has cast doubt on global efforts to tackle climate change, which the president-elect has called a “hoax”. But as the most senior world leader attending the summit in Baku, Starmer said the global political turmoil could benefit the UK economy.

The so-called corpse plant takes a decade to flower – and when it does, the blossom lasts just 24-48 hours and smells of rotting flesh. Guardian Australia's Henry Belot went along to take whiff

• ‘I can hear dry-retching from inside’: queuing for hours to smell Geelong’s corpse plant

Low pressure troughs sitting over swaths of the country are being charged by warmer-than-average ocean temperatures, weather expert says

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Days of severe storms have been forecast for every mainland state and territory in Australia this week, with possible wind gusts, heavy rain, large hail and flash flooding on the cards.

Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said “millions of lightning strikes” were also expected across the country.

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Using LED lighting on the underside of surfboards or kayaks could deter great white shark attacks, new research suggests. An Australian-led study found lighting disrupted the ability of great whites to see silhouettes against the sunlight above, reducing the rate at which the sharks followed and attacked seal-shaped decoys. 'We think this tells us a lot about how sharks see the world and how they detect and target their prey,' Macquarie University's Prof Nathan Hart says. 'But it also potentially gives us an insight in to how we can develop a non-lethal shark deterrent.'

• LED lights on underside of surfboards may deter great white shark attacks

Exclusive: Target is 81% emissions cut compared with 1990, but activists say it must be backed by plan of action

Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers.

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee.

Agreement on rules paving way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad breaks years-long deadlock

Diplomats have greenlit key rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a years-long deadlock and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home.

The agreement, reached late on the first day of Cop29 in Azerbaijan, was hailed by the hosts as an early win at climate talks that have been snubbed by prominent world leaders and clouded by the threat of a US retreat from climate diplomacy after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

Even if president-elect rolls back climate progress, John Podesta reaffirms commitment to a clean planet at Cop29

The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.

An Australian-led study using seal-shaped decoys found underside lighting disrupted ability of great whites to see silhouettes against sunlight above

Using LED lighting on the underside of surfboards or kayaks could deter great white shark attacks, new research suggests.

In an Australian-led study using seal-shaped decoys, underside lighting disrupted the ability of great whites to see silhouettes against the sunlight above, reducing the rates at which the sharks followed and attacked the artificial prey. The brighter the lights, the more effective the deterrent was.

Authorities have been racing to evacuate people reluctant to leave villages affected by the erupting Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano on the Indonesian island of Flores. Volcanic material has continued to spew from its crater since 3 November, prompting authorities to extend the danger area and increase the number of evacuees. Lewotobi Laki-Laki is one of 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia

• At least 10 dead as volcanic eruptions destroy houses in Indonesia

Warmer weather brings multitudes of largest and noisiest varieties to east coast, with some as loud as 120 decibels

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The east coast of Australia is heading into a big, loud cicada summer.

Prof David Emery, veterinary immunologist and cicada expert, called it a “phenomenal season so far” for green grocer cicadas, which emerged in huge numbers in the Blue Mountains in September and were now making their appearance in Sydney and parts of Victoria.

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Much is unclear about how Donald Trump’s return to power will affect efforts to tackle global heating, but there are a few things we can say

You’ve likely already heard the worst-case takes: that a second Trump presidency is a disaster for the climate, and will almost certainly lead to emissions being higher than they otherwise would have been. There’s obvious truth in that. But it’s also true that Trump 2.0 will almost certainly not play out in line with immediate post-election predictions.

We have been here before. As the writer and analyst Ketan Joshi points out, in 2016 it was projected that Trump’s policies would lead to a steep rise in US emissions – a fork in the road at odds with the decline forecast if Hillary Clinton had won.

Exclusive: Environmental group says it is ‘concerned’ to hear progress on cleaning up air pollution from diesel-burning may have hit a wall

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Work to regulate one of Australia’s biggest sources of carbon dioxide and other pollutants “has stalled”, despite the project beginning six years ago and comparable nations limiting emissions years earlier, New South Wales government documents have revealed.

State and federal environment ministers agreed in 2018 to examine pollution from non-road diesel engines as part of the national clean air agreement. These machines totalled more than 640,000 – ranging from mining trucks, outboard motors and forklifts to electricity generators – and were forecast to reach 945,000 by 2043.

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How do you capture the effects of the climate crisis on people right now? We have collected testimonies from around the world

• This is climate breakdown: ‘I heard on the scanner there’s a child in the water’

In March 2024, the Guardian’s environment desk began collaborating on a project that we hope will give voice to the growing number of people around the world living through the daily impact of climate breakdown. Our journalists have worked alongside researchers and humanitarian workers at the Climate Disaster Project (CDP) in Canada and the International Red Cross to compile a series of testimonies from survivors of recent extreme weather events.

CDP is an international teaching newsroom coordinated out of the University of Victoria in Canada that collaborates with disaster survivors. The teams are trained in trauma-informed interview skills, and spent hours speaking with people, listening to their stories and then relaying them in a way that takes us all through the experience. In publishing these testimonies and sharing them with you, we were able to help fulfil the project’s aim of creating “a people’s history of climate change” that would honour the dignity of the survivors.

Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest upheaval since its founding

After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump’s last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House.

When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a “little bit of the EPA” left “because you can’t destroy business”, prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency’s 50-year history.

Voluntary standards proposed at Cop16 focus on local like-for-like habitat projects, while critics call the issue a ‘distraction’

International biodiversity offsetting “doesn’t work”, according to experts aiming to create a nature market that avoids the pitfalls of carbon offsets.

The biodiversity sector has been circling the idea of a credits market that would allow companies to finance restoration and preservation of biodiversity, deliver “net-positive” gains for nature, and help plug the $700bn (£540bn) funding gap.

Finance at top of agenda as developing nations call for funding to build protection against extreme weather impacts

Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, has called a protest tonight in Tbilisi, Georgia, where she has been for some time.

It is the closest that the Swede is able to get to Baku, since Azerbaijan has closed its land borders, posing an insurmountable barrier to those who wish to attend the climate talks but do not wish to fly there, due to the carbon impact of aviation.

Join us as we rally against the wave of authoritarianism and exploitation sweeping through the Caucasus. Azerbaijan, using COP29 as a façade, is ramping up control under a false “green” agenda, tightening its grip on power, and escalating regional tensions.

For over 20 years, Azerbaijan’s regime led by Aliyev have kept people oppressed, fostering poverty, fear, and silence. This authoritarian trend isn’t isolated–across the region, people like Ivanishvili, Putin, Erdogan, theocratic regime in Iran are deepening control, stifling dissent, oppressing their own people and using war and ethnic cleansing against Armenians, Ukrainians, Kurds and other ethnic minorities to justify brutal policies. Those who speak out–journalists, activists, scholars–are often met with imprisonment and violence. Under this system, climate action is reduced to corporate profit schemes, leaving people’s needs ignored and communities devastated.

UN’s top climate official warns ‘no country is immune’ from climate disaster as conference begins in Azerbaijan

Businesses in the private sector must stump up cash for the developing world to invest in a low-carbon economy or face the consequences of climate breakdown, the president of the UN climate summit has said.

Mukhtar Babayev, the environment minister of Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s climate conference, wrote in Monday’s Guardian: “The onus cannot fall entirely on government purses. Unleashing private finance for developing countries’ transition has long been an ambition of climate talks.

This emergency will cost trillions of dollars, and is beyond the reach of developing nations. Private investors have to step up

• Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference

To avert climate catastrophe, the world needs more climate finance. At Cop29, the UN climate summit in Baku that begins today, agreeing a new climate finance goal is the top priority of Azerbaijan’s Cop presidency.

Developing countries require assistance to tackle their emissions and build resilience against growing climate threats. The $100bn annual target, set in 2009, was intended to be fulfilled by 2020. It is now outdated and falls far short of what is needed for countries at the sharp end of the climate crisis.

Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference

Meanwhile, unseasonable heat will continue across parts of Australia this week

The northern Philippines is experiencing its fourth tropical cyclone in three weeks. Typhoon Toraji, also known as Nika, is passing westwards over the island of Luzon, with winds equivalent to a category 1 hurricane. Toraji follows cyclones Trami, Kong-rey, and Yinxing, which combined left 159 people dead and more than 700,000 displaced. The ongoing recovery efforts are being frustrated by the repeated onslaughts of dangerous weather.

The Philippines is no stranger to cyclones, with about 20 hitting the nation each year, but it is unusual for the same region to experience so many in such a short space of time. The main concern for authorities is the sheer amount of rainfall in recent weeks, with torrential rain from Toraji falling on to soils that are saturated and waterways that are already full. About 2,500 villages have been evacuated, mainly due to the extreme risk of landslides, while dams are carrying out controlled releases of water in an effort to counteract flood risks.