The Guardian

Millions of people’s lives wrecked by droughts that used to happen once every 250 years but now expected once a decade

Extreme droughts that have wrecked the lives of millions of people in Syria, Iraq and Iran since 2020 would not have happened without human-caused global heating, a study has found.

The climate crisis means such long-lasting and severe droughts are no longer rare, the analysis showed. In the Tigris-Euphrates basin, which covers large parts of Syria and Iraq, droughts of this severity happened about once every 250 years before global heating – now they are expected once a decade.

Campaigners call for urgent action after data shows almost all bird types reducing in abundance

Woodland birds are facing an accelerating decline in the UK, with species at risk of extinction if the government does not act, experts have said.

Data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has revealed that almost all bird types are reducing in abundance, despite years of warnings from nature bodies that action needs to be taken to protect habitats and save species.

Thousands of specimens from the 1500s show huge changes to Bologna’s flora due to climate crisis and migration, say researchers

A collection of pressed flowers taken from the hillsides of Bologna 500 years ago is unlocking knowledge about how the climate crisis and human migration is changing landscapes in northern Italy.

Picked between 1551 and 1586 by the Renaissance naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the 5,000 delicately cut and dried plants form one of the richest collections of its time.

Trash Free Trails’ report finds average of 41 pieces of litter a kilometre as calls grow for deposit returns scheme

Litter is blighting the UK’s footpaths, with an average 41 pieces found a kilometre, according to a major study. Particularly frequently found brands included Lucozade, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Monster and Walkers.

The State of Our Trails report, conducted by Trash Free Trails, is the first UK study that aims to establish a scientific understanding of the environmental consequences of the tonnes of litter in our landscapes. It drew together more than 1,600 submissions by 4,500 volunteers and with the data the authors have estimated as many as 9.1m individual pieces of litter could be found across the UK’s 220,000km of public rights of way. The surveys took place between July 2020 and August 2023.

The time for alarmist messages is over, and the organisation could help unite people in positive action

• Rupert Read is co-director of the Climate Majority Project

Gail Bradbrook, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, has been found guilty of criminal damage, after she broke a window at the Department for Transport in an ecologically motivated protest against HS2 in 2019.

The timing of Bradbrook’s verdict is almost exquisitely ironic. Five years ago last week, Extinction Rebellion was launched in Parliament Square. Back then, a principal term of criticism lobbied at XR was that it was “alarmist”. Five years on, it’s plainly visible that it was not.

Rupert Read is the author of Extinction Rebellion: Insights from the Inside and Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project

‘Alarming’ new research warns of risk to British woodlands from disease, extreme weather and wildfires, unless ‘call to action’ is heeded now

UK forests are heading for “catastrophic ecosystem collapse” within the next 50 years due to multiple threats including disease, extreme weather and wildfires, researchers have warned, with trees dying on a large scale.

The study, published in the journal Forestry, was put together by a panel of 42 researchers, with 1,200 experts consulted. Lead author, Dr Eleanor Tew, head of forest planning at Forestry England and visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge, described the finding as “sobering and alarming”.

More native plants and species at risk of extinction as Australia enters worst bushfire season since 2019’s black summer

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More than 20 plants and animals have been added to the government’s threatened species list as politicians look ahead to another challenging bushfire season.

A chubby frog, eight kinds of crayfish and a river fish with no scientific description have been added to the growing list of threatened native wildlife.

Predicted 116m tonnes of waste annually by 2060 is six times higher than in 2019, driven by demand in sub-Saharan Africa

Plastic waste is “spiralling out of control” across Africa, where it is growing faster than any other region, new analysis has shown.

At current levels, enough plastic waste to cover a football pitch is openly dumped or burned in sub-Saharan Africa every minute, according to the charity Tearfund.

While Europe is battered by the climate crisis, governments must reassure voters that green costs will be fairly shared

“At a time when we should be accelerating action, there is backtracking … We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open.” A few months ago, the UN secretary general António Guterres used these words to warn that the collective battle against the climate crisis is losing political steam. Guterres was right: the collective response is pitiful. But it’s not just the politicians.

Clear evidence of climate fatigue emerges from recent opinion polls on voting intentions in the next European parliament elections, in June 2024. While European green parties are expected to lose more than a third of their seats, rightwing climate-sceptic conservatives are expected to win big.

Francesco Grillo is a visiting fellow at the European University Institute, Florence and director of the thinktank Vision

Plans by nations including Saudi Arabia, the US and UAE would blow climate targets and ‘throw humanity’s future into question’

The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”.

The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. The plans would lead to 460% more coal production, 83% more gas, and 29% more oil in 2030 than it was possible to burn if global temperature rise was to be kept to the internationally agreed 1.5C. The plans would also produce 69% more fossil fuels than is compatible with the riskier 2C target.

Scientists find average levels of nitrogen dioxide almost twice as high in homes cooking with gas as in those cooking without

Gas cookers are pumping toxic particles linked to childhood asthma into kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms across Europe, a report has found.

Dutch scientists measured the air quality in 247 homes and found average levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were almost twice as high in those cooking with gas as in those cooking without. One in four homes with gas cookers breached hourly pollution levels set by the World Health Organization, while none of the homes in the control group, which used electric cookers, broke the limits.

Last month was hottest October since records began, with average global temperature thought to be 1.7C above late-1800s levels

The world is set to have been hotter in 2023 than in any other year on record, scientists have declared, before a landmark climate summit this month.

“We can say with near certainty that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, and is currently 1.43C above the pre-industrial average,” said Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The sense of urgency for ambitious climate action going into Cop28 has never been higher.”

William says ‘hope does remain’ at event rewarding innovative solutions to climate emergency

Scientists who developed a cleaner and more sustainable way to make batteries for electric cars were among the winners of this year’s Prince of Wales’s £1m Earthshot prizes.

The awards, announced at a ceremony in Singapore on Tuesday, are aimed at rewarding innovative solutions to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies.

PA Media contributed to this report.

Exclusive: Nitrogen dioxide limits and approval tests practically unchanged from current rules under Euro 7 proposals

The EU is poised to water down a landmark piece of car pollution legislation after extensive lobbying from the automotive industry, which experts say will cause an estimated €100bn in health and environmental costs.

Analysis provided by the Consortium for Ultra-low Vehicle Emissions (Clove) exclusively to the Guardian and Voxeurop shows that half of the projected financial savings from the new Euro 7 standards on car emissions will be lost due to damage caused by excess nitrogen dioxide. This toxic gas is the main contaminant released by combustion engines, especially diesel ones, and was responsible for 49,000 premature deaths in the EU and 5,750 in the UK in just one year.

NGOs report allegations of abuse and harassment at Kasigau Corridor conservation project in southern Kenya over 12 years

Male staff at a leading Kenyan carbon-offsetting project used by Netflix, Shell and other large companies have been accused of extensive sexual abuse and harassment over more than a decade, following an investigation by two NGOs.

The Kasigau Corridor conservation project in southern Kenya, operated by the California-based firm Wildlife Works, generates carbon credits by protecting dryland forests at risk of being destroyed in key elephant, lion and wildlife habitats west of Mombasa. The scheme was the first ever forest protection scheme approved by Verra, the world’s leading certifier of carbon offsets, and has also been accredited for its biodiversity and community benefits, probably generating millions of dollars in revenue in carbon-credit sales.

Consumer groups issue formal notice to European Commission over ‘greenwashing’ claims that bottles are ‘100% recyclable’ or ‘100% recycled’

Big drinks companies are misleading customers with claims that their plastic water bottles are fully recycled or recyclable, according to consumer groups who have issued a formal complaint to the European Commission.

The Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC) said claims that water bottles from brands owned by Coca-Cola, Danone and Nestlé are “100% recyclable” or “100% recycled” are misleading because recycling rates are far lower in practice and bottles contain items that cannot be made from recycled material. The consumer rights group, which represents national groups across Europe, also said green imagery on bottles gave the “false idea” of environmental neutrality.

Interbreeding may have boosted wildcat immunity to domestic cat diseases, but now threatens their survival as a distinct species

Humans weren’t the only creatures to fall under the sway of free love in the 1960s. After 2,000 years of keeping one another at paw’s length, wildcats and their domestic cousins began to interbreed about 60 years ago, a new study suggests.

Doing so may have helped to protect their offspring against diseases harboured by domestic cats, but this interbreeding is now threatening the survival of wildcats as a distinct species.

In showing their disdain for the climate crisis, homelessness and refugees, the Conservatives are being deliberately provocative, and they expect us to lap it up

Imagine someone had said to King Charles: “Yes, you are going to end up top dog, but you won’t give your first address to parliament as king until a week before your 75th birthday. And, in it, you’ll have to walk the country through new annual oil and gas licences that represent a disregard for the future of the planet that you’ve spent your adult life worrying about.” Well, the poor guy would have been pretty dispirited. In fact, these energy plans look like a deliberate provocation – so much so that you have to wonder whether Rishi Sunak and the king have beef we don’t know about.

The oil and gas licences themselves are nonsense. Sunak knows that. None of the major industry players are rewriting their business strategies on the understanding that the Tories will be in power even this time next year, let alone on a rolling annual basis beyond that. The fields under offer are unlikely to produce enough oil and gas to meet our need for what Sunak calls “energy security”; Shell and BP have already sold some of their North Sea assets. In other words, this policy has no concrete practical application. It is pure vice-signalling.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Exclusive: study finds militaries have generated about 430m metric tonnes of CO2 emissions since 2015 Paris accords

The US and UK militaries owe at least $111bn in reparations to communities most harmed by their planet-heating pollution, a first-of-its-kind study calculates.

The research employs a “social cost of carbon” framework – a way to estimate the cost, in dollars, of the climate damage done by each additional tonne of carbon in the atmosphere.