The Guardian
Oxbridge must end dirty investments – both offshore and oil | Elana Sulakshana, Eleanor Salter and Julia Peck
The Paradise Papers have exposed the hypocrisy of universities that teach sustainability while financing climate destruction offshore. We’re calling on them to come clean
Students at Oxford and Cambridge are taught about the dangers of economic inequality, climate change, and the limits of burnable carbon. But the Paradise Papers have revealed that behind the scenes, the universities are investing tens of millions in projects that systematically exacerbate inequality and climate disaster.
The scandal is not simply tax avoidance. It is the hypocrisy of universities that espouse their commitment to sustainability while financing environmental destruction offshore.
Continue reading...Country diary: peregrine is on the chase, but I can't make out the prey
Most hunts happen in the early morning or just before dusk – except in winter during the short days
Skylarks are chasing each other over the fields, their sharp calls piercing the air. Two of the birds climb overhead. The second, having seen off the first, circles back, and begins to hover, singing snatches of its bright, vigorous territorial song. The brown, falling leaves are a reminder that it’s November.
Shadows drift across the hillside. The evening sun, reaching between the breaks in the moving cloud, lights up patches of undulating ground so they glow golden brown and yellow-green before falling into darkness again. A group of white gulls is heading back from the coast to the open fields to find somewhere to roost for the night. The sun catches each one as they pass, and they shine brightly like silvered pearls.
Continue reading...Labour vows to factor climate change risk into economic forecasts
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell to say ‘overwhelming challenge of climate change’ must be addressed from very centre of government
The risk posed by climate change would be factored into projections from the government’s independent economic forecaster if Labour took office, the shadow chancellor will announce on Tuesday.
John McDonnell will highlight the human and economic costs of manmade climate change, calling it the “greatest single public challenge” and say the government should include the fiscal risks posed by global warming in future forecasts.
Continue reading...'Tobacco at a cancer summit': Trump coal push savaged at climate conference
The US administration’s attempt to portray fossil fuels as vital to reducing poverty and saving US jobs is ridiculed in Bonn
The Trump team was heckled and interrupted by a protest song at the UN’s climate change summit in Bonn on Monday after using its only official appearance to say fossil fuels were vital to reducing poverty around the world and to saving jobs in the US.
While Donald Trump’s special adviser on energy and environment, David Banks, said cutting emissions was a US priority, “energy security, economic prosperity are higher priorities”, he said. “The president has a responsibility to protect jobs and industry across the country.”
Continue reading...On climate and global leadership, it's America Last until 2020 | Dana Nuccitelli
America is deeply divided, but climate-denying Republicans are losing their grip on power
Five months ago, Trump quickly cemented his legacy as the country’s worst-ever president by inexplicably starting the process to withdraw from the Paris climate accords. With even war-torn Syria now signing the agreement, the leadership of every world country has announced its intent to tackle the existential threat posed by human-caused climate change, except the United States.
It's the US vs. the rest of the world, as Syria agrees to sign Paris climate accord https://t.co/Q1tkxuiHas pic.twitter.com/hnV2wHmLHL
Continue reading...Share your photos and stories of how you are avoiding plastic
With a growing number of UK food and drink outlets ditching drinking straws and plastic bottles, we’d like to hear your tips for reducing plastic consumption
Pret A Manger announced in October the installation of taps dispensing free filtered water in some of its stores in an attempt to reduce the company’s use of plastic.
A growing number of food and drink outlets are taking action to ditch plastic amid deepening concern about its effect on the environment, with drinking straws and bottles among items being phased out.
Continue reading...From the Everglades to Kilimanjaro, climate change is destroying world wonders
Number of natural world heritage sites at serious risk from global warming has doubled in three years, says the IUCN, including the Great Barrier Reef and spectacular karst caves in Europe
From the Everglades in the US to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, climate change is destroying the many of the greatest wonders of the natural world.
A new report on Monday from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveals that the number of natural world heritage sites being damaged and at risk from global warming has almost doubled to 62 in the past three years.
Continue reading...Fossil fuel burning set to hit record high in 2017, scientists warn
The rise would end three years of flat carbon emissions – a ‘huge leap backward’ say some scientists, while others say the longer term trend is more hopeful
The burning of fossil fuels around the world is set to hit a record high in 2017, climate scientists have warned, following three years of flat growth that raised hopes that a peak in global emissions had been reached.
The expected jump in the carbon emissions that drive global warming is a “giant leap backwards for humankind”, according to some scientists. However, other experts said they were not alarmed, saying fluctuations in emissions are to be expected and that big polluters such as China are acting to cut emissions.
Continue reading...Country diary: starlings dot the lighthouse roof like currants on a bun
St Mary’s Island, Northumberland Children with fluorescent nets peer into plastic buckets; their cries of excitement echoed by the piping of seabirds
Heading south on the coastal path, we leave Old Hartley village, drawn magnetically by St Mary’s Island with its tall white lighthouse. The sea is a muted grey, with two vast container ships at rest near its meeting with a paler sky.
The footpath skirts a tufty hillock where a kestrel hovers over rough grass, fenced off from the path by chestnut paling. I catch the medicinal scent of mugwort, its glaucous leaves curling and turning winter brown. The scrubby clifftops are a tangle of rose briars and brambles, safe thickets for stonechat and wren. Amongst the windblown tussocks are seedheads of wild carrot, yarrow and knapweed, with late flowers of red clover.
Continue reading...Medibank drops fossil-fuel investments worth tens of millions of dollars
Australia’s largest private health insurer says it ‘acknowledges the science of climate change and the impacts on human health’
Australia’s largest private health insurer, Medibank, will shed tens of millions of dollars in fossil-fuel investments because of the effects of climate change on human health.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange before its annual general meeting in Melbourne on Monday, its chair, Elizabeth Alexander, said the company would move to low-carbon investments “in line with our commitment to the health and wellbeing of our customers”.
Continue reading...Queensland land clearing could become 'tsunami', say conservation groups
Notification of planned clearing is up 30% in the past year compared with the previous three-year average
A dramatic land-clearing surge in Queensland could turn into a “tsunami” in the coming year, say conservationists, the rate of notifications of planned clearing rising 30% in the past year compared with the previous three-year average.
Continue reading...Congo basin’s peaty swamps are new front in climate change battle
Stumbling on submerged roots, attacked by bees and wading waist-deep through leech-infested water, the three researchers and their Pygmy guides progress at just 100 metres an hour through the largest and least-explored tropical bog in the world.
The group halt and unpack what looks like a spear, which is plunged over and over again into the waterlogged forest floor. Each time it brings up a metre-long core of rich, black peat made up of partly decomposed leaves and ancient plantlife. The deepest the steel blade reaches before meeting the underlying clay is 3.7 metres.
Continue reading...Loving Blue Planet? Go one better and take a real submarine trip to the deep
The unknowable expanse of the oceans has become a little more familiar after Blue Planet II. Now it is set to become more familiar still to tourists with enough cash to spare.
The BBC series is the most-watched show of 2017, with 14.1 million viewers tuning in for unseen wonders like cannibalistic Humboldt squid, methane belching from the ocean floor and an underwater lake of brine. Scenes like these are beyond the view of anyone except TV crews, scientists and explorers – but not for much longer. Submarine tourism is riding a wave of interest that is likely to swell as the series continues.
Continue reading...Alternative US group honouring Paris climate accord demands 'seat at the table'
The America’s Pledge group claims to represent US majority opinion on carbon emissions, despite Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement
The United Nations should give a “seat at the table” to a powerful group of US states, cities, tribes and businesses that are committed to taking action on climate change, Michael Bloomberg has urged.
In an apparent bid to circumvent US president Donald Trump’s moves to withdraw from the Paris accord, the billionaire philanthropist also said the world body should accept an alternative set of US climate commitments alongside national pledges to reduce carbon emissions.
Continue reading...US groups honouring Paris climate pledges despite Trump
US states, cities and businesses signed up to ‘America’s pledge’ to combat global warning have a combined economic power equal to the world’s third-biggest economy
The US states, cities and businesses that have signed up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions despite president Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from the Paris agreement would, if put together, have the clout of the world’s third biggest economy, after the US and China.
To date, 20 US states and more than 50 of its largest cities, along with more than 60 of the biggest businesses in the US, have committed to emissions reduction goals.
Continue reading...The eco guide to using your money
Switch to an ethical bank account and invest in renewable energy, not fossil fuels
Giving to charity, while highly recommended, does not make you an activist. It makes you a charity donor. Great in its own right, but move your bank account and then you’re edging into activist territory. As motivation, read a new report from Christian Aid that unpicks the global banking industry, zeroing in on the Big Four, which hold almost all of our money. What emerges is a picture of a system rife with dysfunction.
Despite the falling costs for renewables and their increasingly swift take-up, your money, via private banks, still primarily bankrolls fossil fuels. If this continues, by 2050 the global economy will have invested $23tn into fossil fuels, sinking the targets of the globally agreed Paris Agreement, our best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
Continue reading...Al Gore: 'I tried my best' but Trump can't be educated on climate change
At UN climate talks in Bonn, Gore is heading an unofficial group trying to stop climate change – in the face of scepticism from Trump administration officials
Al Gore has accused Donald Trump of surrounding himself “with the absolute worst of climate deniers” and said he has given up attempting to persuade the president to reverse his dismantling of policies combatting global warming.
However, both Gore, the former US vice-president, and Jerry Brown, governor of California, told the Guardian they were confident the US will regain its leadership position on climate change if Trump is defeated in the next presidential election.
Continue reading...Trump environment nominee struggles to answer basic climate questions – video
Kathleen Hartnett White struggles to answer basic questions posed by the Senate committee on environment and public works on Thursday. Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee for the environmental quality council chair, had difficulty answering questions from Senators Ben Cardin and Sheldon Whitehouse on green house emissions and climate science
Continue reading...Emissions trading and refrigerated truck engines under scrutiny | Letters
While the EU is extolling its “climate leadership” at the UN climate talks in Bonn, in Brussels it has just agreed to prolong its emissions trading system – providing big polluters with billions of euros in subsidies.
Some EU member states could use a sizable chunk of these funds to carry on burning fossil fuels, with Poland, for instance, looking to prolong the lifespan of its ageing coal infrastructure. Using emissions trading revenues to extend the life of coal-fired power plants is extremely irresponsible and works directly against efforts to halt catastrophic climate change.
Continue reading...US switches focus of its Bonn event from clean energy to fossil fuels
One of US’s only public events, originally billed as promoting clean energy, has since been changed to favour coal and nuclear power
The US has changed the focus of one of its few public events at the Bonn climate talks to emphasise coal and nuclear power, in a sign of the Trump administration’s goals at the talks.
An event next Monday, opening the second week of the ongoing UN negotiations, was originally billed as promoting clean energy. However, it has since been changed to emphasise coal and nuclear power.
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