The Guardian
Share your questions for climate strikers and George Monbiot
Young activists and our columnist answer your questions as pupils around the world stage climate strikes
On Friday 15 March young people around the world will be walking out of their classrooms to strike for action to save the planet from climate change.
Related: Young climate strikers can win their fight. We must all help | George Monbiot
Continue reading...Sharp rise in Arctic temperatures now inevitable – UN
Temperatures likely to rise by 3-5C above pre-industrial levels even if Paris goals met
Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found.
Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN.
Continue reading...Low-carbon heating to replace gas in new UK homes after 2025
Environmental groups say chancellor’s climate change pledges do not go far enough
Gas boilers will be replaced by low-carbon heating systems in all new homes built after 2025 in an attempt to tackle the escalating climate crisis, Philip Hammond has said.
In his spring statement, the chancellor said new properties would use alternative systems, such as heat pumps, to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions.
Continue reading...'A speech is not a policy': environment groups call on ALP to announce policy details
Labor has promised to introduce strong environment laws and a national EPA if elected but policy details have been scarce
Three months on from Bill Shorten’s promise to introduce strong environment laws if elected, campaigners are calling on Labor to release the policy detail behind the pledge, with one accusing the ALP environment spokesman, Tony Burke, of going missing on the issue.
For activists who have spent decades fighting to strengthen protection of Australia’s natural heritage, Shorten’s commitment at the ALP conference in December to bring in a new environment act and a national environment protection authority (EPA) was an extraordinary breakthrough. In the months since, they say, the issue has evolved into a question mark.
Continue reading...Heathrow third runway unlawful, says Friends of the Earth
Environment groups, councils and London mayor challenge airport expansion in high court
The decision to expand Heathrow airport with a third runway was unlawful because it failed to consider the full impacts of climate change and the need for more stringent targets to avoid catastrophic global warming, the high court has been told.
Friends of the Earth on Wednesday accused the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, of acting unlawfully when he agreed to the expansion, which is contained in the government’s airports national policy statement.
Continue reading...'Social disaster': South Korea brings in emergency laws to tackle dust pollution
Air quality has become a key political issue after record pollution levels hit the country last week
South Korea has passed emergency measures to tackle the “social disaster” being unleashed by air pollution, after record levels of fine dust blanketed most of the country in recent weeks.
The national assembly passed a series of bills on Wednesday giving authorities access to emergency funds for measures that include the mandatory installation of high-capacity air purifiers in classrooms and encouraging sales of liquified petroleum gas vehicles, which produce lower emissions than those that run on petrol and diesel.
Continue reading...Coal baron and LNP donor blasts RBA for sounding alarm on climate change
Trevor St Baker says deputy governor’s speech warning of risks to Australia’s economy is ‘totally inappropriate’
The coal baron and Liberal National party donor Trevor St Baker has blasted the Reserve Bank deputy governor, Guy Debelle, for sounding the alarm on climate change, branding a significant speech on Tuesday warning of risks to Australia’s financial stability “totally inappropriate”.
The politically connected founder of the business electricity retailer ERM Power, who has approached the Morrison government to underwrite new coal developments in Victoria and New South Wales, including a high-efficiency plant on the site of the AGL-owned Liddell power station, told the ABC on Wednesday Debelle’s intervention was out of order.
Continue reading...'Almost certain extinction': 1,200 species under severe threat across world
Scientists map out threats faced by thousands of species of birds, mammals and amphibians
More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.
Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.
Continue reading...Enough scandalous time-wasting on climate change. Let's get back to the facts | Lenore Taylor
At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing
- Our new series focuses on the climate change emergency. You can help support it
Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start. I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.
“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”
Continue reading...Our wide brown land: looking back at a year of environmental reporting
Our wide brown land has come to an end. As we launch the editorial appeal for The Frontline: Australia and the climate emergency, we look back at the impact made by the series
- Our new in-depth series focuses on the climate change emergency and you can help support it
It was a very long list.
When we first considered the idea of a new investigative series looking at Australia’s less-scrutinised environmental issues, we knew we had to speak to those on the frontline. We discussed the idea with Australia’s top scientists and environmentalists and it became clear there were many issues needing urgent attention.
Continue reading...Trump approves five national monuments – from black history to dinosaur bones
The new sites created by a sweeping public lands bill have been years in the making – here’s our guide
Donald Trump has signed a sweeping new public lands bill that protects 1.3m acres of wilderness and creates monuments to US history that has been overlooked, including the African American experience in the civil war and the fight for civil rights.
Years in the crafting, the measure will designate 367 miles of new scenic rivers and 2,600 miles of new national trails. It protects nearly 500,000 acres in California alone, and enlarges both Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks. And it reauthorizes a crucial funding mechanism for land and water conservation that had lapsed.
Continue reading...Orange-bellied 'Starry Dwarf Frog' discovered in Indian mountains
Astrobatrachus kurichiyana lurks in leaf litter and is sole member of an ancient lineage
An orange-bellied frog with a brown back, covered in tiny spots that resemble a starry sky, has been discovered in a mountain range in India, surprising researchers who said its ancestors branched off on the evolutionary tree from other members of the same frog family tens of millions of years ago.
The frog, which is about 2cm to 3cm long, has been named Astrobatrachus kurichiyana, although some might prefer its more rock-star sobriquet: “Starry Dwarf Frog.”
Continue reading...Resource extraction responsible for half world’s carbon emissions
Extraction also causes 80% of biodiversity loss, according to comprehensive UN study
Extraction industries are responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions and more than 80% of biodiversity loss, according to the most comprehensive environmental tally undertaken of mining and farming.
While this is crucial for food, fuel and minerals, the study by UN Environment warns the increasing material weight of the world’s economies is putting a more dangerous level of stress on the climate and natural life-support systems than previously thought.
Continue reading...Air pollution deaths are double previous estimates, finds research
Researchers say dirty air is killing 800,000 people a year in Europe, and urge the phasing out of fossil fuel burning
The number of early deaths caused by air pollution is double previous estimates, according to research, meaning toxic air is killing more people than tobacco smoking.
The scientists used new data to estimate that nearly 800,000 people die prematurely each year in Europe because of dirty air, and that each life is cut short by an average of more than two years. The health damage caused by air pollution in Europe is higher than the global average. Its dense population and poor air results in exposure that is among the highest in the world.
Continue reading...Surge in chemical use ‘a threat to health and environment’
UN warns of global failure to tackle hazards – with risks ranging from cancer to coral damage
Sales of synthetic chemicals will double over the next 12 years with alarming implications for health and the environment, according to a global study that highlights government failures to rein in the industry behind plastics, pesticides and cosmetics.
The second Global Chemicals Outlook, which was released in Nairobi on Monday, said the world will not meet international commitments to reduce chemical hazards and halt pollution by 2020. In fact, the study by the United Nations Environment Programme found that the industry has never been more dominant nor has humanity’s dependence on chemicals ever been as great.
Continue reading...Weatherwatch: how autumn winds can help predict winter temperatures
Air pressure over Europe and North Atlantic may provide vital data to UK energy suppliers
This time last year the UK was recovering from the “beast from the east”. Across the country heating was dialled to max and gas suppliers struggled to keep up with demand. Now a study shows how autumn wind patterns could help utility companies anticipate winter weather.
Normally energy providers use historical data to predict the temperature in the colder months. But British weather is fickle and winters vary, so this technique is unreliable. Instead Prof Adam Scaife, the head of long range prediction at the Met Office, and his colleagues compared atmospheric circulation patterns in November with gas demand the following winter.
Continue reading...Radical proposal to artificially cool Earth's climate could be safe, new study claims
Experts worry that injecting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere could put some regions at risk
A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world.
Related: Geoengineering may be used to combat global warming, experts say
Continue reading...Gas strategy in the UK is wrongheaded | Letters
It is no surprise that the government’s strategy on fracking has been deemed unlawful (Fracking guidance illegally ignores climate change, 7 March). Gas may be more fuel efficient than coal when burnt, but shale gas is 95% methane, and methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. According to the IPCC it has a global warming potential (GWP) 85 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe. Misleadingly, HMG have relied on an obsolete figure of 36 for the GWP of methane, dating back to 2013.
Methane levels plateaued in the late 1990s, but have started to increase again over the past decade and have now reached 1,900 parts per billion, against a pre-industrial level of 700. Fracking is the obvious culprit. Satellite data over the US has shown that methane leakage exceeds 5% of shale gas production, an observation that fits with more recent studies by Nasa showing that fossil fuels are the major contributor to the continuing rise in atmospheric methane.
Continue reading...Martin Woodcock obituary
Amid the economic uncertainty of the mid 1970s not many people gave up a job in the City of London. But in 1974, Martin Woodcock did just that, swapping life as a stockbroker to become a freelance bird artist.
He never looked back. Martin, who has died aged 84, spent the rest of his distinguished career travelling through Asia and Africa to observe, draw and paint some of the world’s most elusive birds. His masterwork, which kept him busy for almost three decades, was the monumental, multivolume The Birds of Africa, for which he painted more than 200 colour plates.
Continue reading...Pathogens hitchhiking on plastics ‘could carry cholera from India to US’
Research finds ‘nurdles’ washed up on Scottish beaches tainted with E coli, with potentially far-reaching health implications
Dangerous sewage pathogens have been found “hitch-hiking” on plastic litter washed up on some of Scotland’s finest bathing beaches, raising concerns from scientists the phenomenon could have far-reaching implications for human health worldwide.
The findings, by the University of Stirling, have confirmed environmentalists’ fears that ubiquitous, persistent and tiny plastic beads, or “nurdles”, found on beaches and in rivers and seas around the world, act as rafts for harmful bacteria, transporting them from sewage outfalls and agricultural runoff to bathing waters and shellfish beds.
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