The Guardian
Environmental photographer of the year 2023 – in pictures
A termite-snatching drongo, cows wading through flood water and a coral glowing like a Christmas tree are among this year’s winners. From CIWEM and WaterBear, and presented by Nikon in association with MPB and supported by Arup, the 16th year of the contest showcases global environmental photography to inspire change and climate action. The six winners primarily come from climate-vulnerable countries, including Bangladesh, India, and Argentina
Continue reading...Scampi scam? UK retailers accused of misleading claims on environmental impact
Five-year project to reduce environmental impact of industry has ‘all but failed’, report finds
British retailers and seafood companies have been accused of making misleading claims over “responsibly sourced” scampi or langoustines, according to campaigners, who say a five-year project to reduce the environmental impact of the £68m industry appears to be failing.
The companies, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Young’s and Whitby Seafoods – the last of which is currently the largest supplier of breaded scampi to UK pubs, restaurants and fish and chip shops – are all part of a fishery improvement project (FIP) aimed at making the UK langoustine industry more sustainable.
Continue reading...Newcastle Port protest: reverend Alan Stuart, 97, among 109 arrested in climate blockade – video
Police arrested 109 climate protesters taking part in a blockade at Newcastle port on Sunday, including Alan Stuart, a 97-year-old Uniting Church reverend. NSW police say protesters continued blocking the port beyond the 30-hour agreed deadline
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Continue reading...Burrup Hub gas project could release 13 times Australia’s annual carbon emissions, analysis suggests
Greenpeace-led research discussed in Canberra with independent Kate Chaney saying politicians need to understand ‘sheer scale’ of what is planned in WA
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Planned gas developments on Western Australia’s Burrup Hub led by Woodside Energy could result in twice as much greenhouse gas being emitted as any other Australian fossil fuel development up for approval, according to an analysis by environment groups.
The analysis led by Greenpeace estimated the Burrup Hub expansion could lead to 6.1bn tonnes of CO2 across the decades ahead if fully developed – roughly 13 times what Australia emits annually. Most of the emissions would be released when the gas was sold and burned overseas.
Continue reading...British empire’s past emissions ‘double UK’s climate responsibility’
Exclusive: Data shows that including CO2 from countries once under colonial rule makes Britain one of world’s biggest historical emitters
The UK is responsible for almost twice as much global heating as previously thought when its colonial history is taken into account, analysis has revealed.
The UK’s domestic emissions account for 3% of total world emissions dating back to 1850. But when responsibility for emissions in countries once under the British empire’s rule is given to the UK, the figure rises to more than 5%.
Continue reading...EU climate chief: China must help fund rescue of poorer nations hit by disaster
Gulf petrostates must also pay for relief, warns EU commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in the run-up to the Cop28 summit
China and other big developing nations must pay into a fund to rescue poor countries stricken by the climate disaster, the EU’s climate chief has said as world leaders prepare to gather in Dubai for a crucial climate summit.
Wopke Hoekstra, EU commissioner for climate action, said there was no longer any reason to exclude big emerging economies with high greenhouse gas emissions such as China and petrostates in the Gulf from the obligation to provide aid to the poorest and most vulnerable countries.
Continue reading...Fire ants – ‘one of world’s worst super pests’ – cross Queensland border into NSW
Biosecurity officers are working to chemically eradicate three nests found in South Murwillumbah
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Authorities are rushing to contain the spread of fire ants after the invasive species crossed the Queensland border into New South Wales for the first time since the infestation began in 2001.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries confirmed on Saturday that three red imported fire ant nests had been found in South Murwillumbah, 13km from the Queensland border in the state’s north-east.
Continue reading...Cop28: Australia to bring evidence it can meet 2030 climate target but pressure builds over fossil fuels
Chris Bowen says country ‘reaping the economic opportunities’ of clean energy as emissions projection improves
The Albanese government will head to a major UN climate summit in Dubai furnishing new evidence that Australia is all but on track to meet its 2030 emissions target, but facing calls that it must do more to limit the country’s fossil fuel exports.
A snapshot of an upcoming emissions projections report released by the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, suggests Australia will likely cut its CO2 pollution to 42% below 2005 levels by 2030 – nearly in line with the government’s 43% reduction target.
Continue reading...Frequent flyers are rewarded for polluting. Let them pay the full price | Martha Gill
Is net zero a “luxury belief”? A strange assumption seems to have become knitted into the climate debate: that the burden of cutting carbon emissions will – must, inevitably – fall hardest on the poor.
This is the logic by which climate activists are sometimes deemed snobby, classist virtue-signallers – and the principle on which, earlier this year, Rishi Sunak signalled a tactical retreat on green policies. “It cannot be right for Westminster to impose such significant costs on working people,” the prime minister said. Because, of course, this is the group such policies would hurt the most.
Continue reading...Maybe shipworms will be the next calamari, but all the same, I’ll pass | Kathryn Bromwich
A team of scientists at Plymouth University is hoping to set up the world’s first shipworm farm. The marine pests, which they have renamed “naked clams”, are nutritious, high in vitamin B12, and require only wood and water to grow.
It’s wonderful news. We desperately need sustainable sources of protein: meat is responsible for nearly 60% of greenhouse gases from food production, while industrial fish farming has huge environmental costs.
Continue reading...World stands on frontline of disaster at Cop28, says UN climate chief
Exclusive: Simon Stiell says leaders must ‘stop dawdling’ and act before crucial summit in Dubai
World leaders must “stop dawdling and start doing” on carbon emission cuts, as rapidly rising temperatures this year have put everyone on the frontline of disaster, the UN’s top climate official has warned.
No country could think itself immune from catastrophe, said Simon Stiell, who will oversee the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week. Scores of world leaders will arrive in Dubai for tense talks on how to tackle the crisis.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on the carbon divide: climate policies must target the private jet set | Editorial
Noticing massive historical and geographical disparities in carbon emissions is not enough. Big polluters must be stopped
From luxury yachts to private jets and supercars, the enormously destructive travel and leisure habits of the super-rich are to the fore in the latest research on the carbon gap that divides the world’s wealthiest people from everyone else. Calculations by Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and others reveal that the richest 1% produced as much carbon pollution in one year as the 5 billion people who make up the poorest two-thirds of humanity. Though they number just 2,600, the combined wealth of the world’s billionaires is greater than the GDP of all but two countries – the US and China. The impact on the environment of their carbon‑intensive behaviour is colossal.
But as this week’s Guardian series, the great carbon divide, has shown, outsized emissions are not only the work of this minority of the ultra-wealthy. Nor are they confined to the far larger number of individuals with a net worth of at least $1m, combined with energy‑intensive lifestyles, who social scientist Dario Kenner calls the “polluter elite”. In fact, half of all emissions are produced by the top 10% – that is, the much bigger group of about 800 million people who earn at least $40,000. While in their own countries these people are regarded as middle income or middle class, their consumption and emissions far outstrip those of 90% of the world’s inhabitants.
Continue reading...Ove Hoegh-Guldberg received death threats for his work. He kept fighting anyway – video
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg’s pioneering research in the 1990s found increasing sea temperatures would damage the world’s coral reefs, killing them faster than they could recover. Hoegh-Guldberg speaks with Guardian Australia about being labelled an alarmist while championing one of the world’s richest ecosystems.
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This video is part of Weight of the World: a climate scientist's burden. The series features three pioneering Australian climate change scientists - Graeme Pearman, Lesley Hughes and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. The series tells the story of how the three scientists made their discoveries, how they came under attack for their science and the personal toll it has taken on them. And importantly, how they stay hopeful.
See the other pieces in our series Weight of the world: a climate scientist’s burden
Listen to the Weight of the World podcast series
Watch Graeme Pearman and Lesley Hughes share their stories
Chris Bowen’s bold and sudden movement on climate sent the Coalition clutching at its pearls
The existential battle against global heating requires connecting science, politics and community life, often much harder than it looks
A lot of the time, politics feels incremental. But every now and again, a big thing happens suddenly. Chris Bowen made it clear this week the government intends to transform the fundamentals of Australia’s energy grid. Labor has been saying this for ages of course, but this week, words were matched by a concrete plan of action.
Bowen unveiled a radical expansion of a capacity scheme intended to reshape the national electricity market. Coal is coming out, renewables moving in and taxpayers will underwrite the transformation. This is the biggest strategic shift Australians have seen in this policy area for a decade or more.
Continue reading...Exposure to widely used insecticides decreases sperm concentration, study finds
Study’s author says ‘we need to reduce exposure in order to ensure men who want to conceive are able to without interference’
Exposure to several widely used insecticides probably decreases sperm concentration and may have profound effects on male fertility, new US research finds.
The George Mason University paper analyzed five decades of peer-reviewed studies to determine if organophosphates and carbamate-based pesticides exposure correlated with decreased sperm concentration.
Continue reading...Motor emissions could have fallen by over 30% without SUV trend, report says
Global fall averaged 4.2% between 2010 and 2022 but would have been far more if vehicle sizes stayed same
Emissions from the motor sector could have fallen by more than 30% between 2010 and 2022 if vehicles had stayed the same size, a report has found.
Instead, the size of the average car ballooned as the trend for SUVs took off, meaning the global annual rate of energy intensity reductions – the fall in fuel used – of light-duty vehicles (LDV) averaged 4.2% between 2020 and 2022.
Continue reading...Medicinal leeches poised for comeback in Scottish Highlands
Project aims to release hundreds into lochs and streams after centuries of habitat loss and exploitation
The medicinal leech is one of nature’s least loved hunters. Armed with three strong interlocking jaws and with a taste for blood, they will swim hungrily towards humans, deer or cattle that wander into their ponds to bathe, fish or drink.
Yet this small predator is the focus of an unlikely reintroduction programme by conservationists working in a small laboratory deep in the Scottish Highlands, at a wildlife park best known for its polar bears, wildcats and wolves.
Continue reading...Weather tracker: Ethiopia hit by severe drought amid east Africa floods
More than 50 people dead in Tigray and Amhara regions while UN warns of ‘crisis-level hunger or worse’ in Somalia
The regions of Tigray and Amhara in northern Ethiopia have continued to experience severe drought conditions with more than 50 people dead, as well as 4,000 cattle.
While northern Ethiopia suffers from droughts, the southern and eastern parts of the country, along with Kenya and Somalia, have been hit by flooding. Somalia suffered the worst of the flooding, with 50 people reported dead. According to the Somali disaster management agency almost 700,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.
Continue reading...Toxic air killed more than 500,000 people in EU in 2021, data shows
European Environment Agency says half of deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to recommended limits
Dirty air killed more than half a million people in the EU in 2021, estimates show, and about half of the deaths could have been avoided by cutting pollution to the limits recommended by doctors.
The researchers from the European Environment Agency attributed 253,000 early deaths to concentrations of fine particulates known as PM2.5 that breached the World Health Organization’s maximum guideline limits of 5µg/m3. A further 52,000 deaths came from excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide and 22,000 deaths from short-term exposure to excessive levels of ozone.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures: a moose on the loose, baby seals and cheeky tigers
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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