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Pupils block London council’s attempts to remove play space near school
Latest attempt to dismantle primary ‘school street’ in Tower Hamlets disrupted amid pollution concerns
A group of pupils in east London have seen off – temporarily at least – the workers who had come to dismantle their school street.
Parents gathered outside Chisenhale primary school in Mile End on Thursday morning to show support for the area, which includes a play space protected by a wooden fence, trellised with plants and painted in bright colours.
Continue reading...Cop27: the climate carnage we've faced this year – video
One by one, the grim scenarios climate scientists had outlined for the near future have been overtaken by events: extreme storms, droughts, floods and ice-sheet collapses whose sudden appearances have outstripped researchers’ worst predictions. Catastrophic climate change is happening more rapidly and with greater intensity than their grimmest warnings, it transpires.
With the 2022 global climate summit Cop 27 upon us, the Guardian looks back at how the climate crisis has affected communities around the world since the last meeting in Glasgow in 2021
- Cop27 climate summit: window for avoiding catastrophe is closing fast
- Climate activists: how are you protesting during Cop27?
Thailand boosts 2030 emissions target to 30% cut from BAU scenario, sees role for Article 6 cooperation
‘Climate carnage’: UN demands funding surge to save millions of lives
Secretary-general warns effects of global heating are outstripping the ability to adapt to them
A dramatic increase in funding for climate adaptation is needed to save millions of lives from “climate carnage”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said.
Climate adaptation includes preparing defences against rising floods, shelters against intensifying cyclones and emergency plans to protect people during worsening heatwaves and droughts. Guterres said only a small fraction of the required finance was given by rich nations to protect vulnerable people.
Continue reading...UK environment watchdog confronts Thérèse Coffey over missed targets
Office for Environmental Protection chair expresses concern over delays to legislative deadlines
The head of the independent environmental watchdog is holding talks with the environment secretary over delays in meeting key targets to tackle water and air pollution and halt the decline in nature.
Dame Glenys Stacey, the chair of the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), has told Thérèse Coffey, the new secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, that the possibility of taking formal enforcement action against the government over multiple missed targets was being kept under active review. The OEP can launch an investigation and take legal action if it deems it necessary.
Continue reading...Start-up to offer carbon credits for shutting oil and gas wells
How gas is being rebranded as green – video
Is natural gas renewable? Is it a fossil fuel? A casual google search for natural gas gives the impression that these questions are somehow up for debate. And while natural gas has helped reduce carbon emissions as it was widely adopted as a replacement for coal, it is now up against zero-emission energy such as wind and solar. So how did natural gas end up in the same bracket as renewables? Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores the lengths fossil fuel companies have gone to in order to try to convince consumers, voters and lawmakers that natural gas is somehow a clean energy source
Continue reading...World leaders at Cop27 can’t ignore the plight of imprisoned Alaa Abd El-Fattah | Caroline Lucas
While climate justice is debated at the summit, justice is failing the activist who is six months into a hunger strike
- Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion
You probably haven’t heard of Alaa Abd El-Fattah – so let me tell you about him. He’s a British citizen. He’s a father to a 10-year-old son. He’s a dearly loved brother. He’s a writer and a pro-democracy activist in Egypt, whose powerful and emotive blogging played a part in catalysing the nation’s seismic 2011 uprising.
He’s also been unlawfully imprisoned by the Egyptian authorities for more than nine years – that’s a quarter of his life – and he has faced persecution and psychological torture. Now he could have just days to live.
Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion
Continue reading...Australian $44-bln pension fund adopts EU climate reporting benchmarks to avoid exaggerated results
‘It’s greenwash’: most home compostable plastics don’t work, says study
Materials put into domestic compost are failing to disintegrate after six months – the only solution is to use less
Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research.
An estimated 10% of people can effectively compost at home, but for the remaining 90% of the population the best place to dispose of compostable plastics is in landfill, where they slowly break down, releasing methane, researchers say. If compostable plastic ends up among food waste, it contaminates it and blocks the recycling process, the study finds. The only solution is to use less plastic.
Continue reading...Fossil fuel burning once caused a mass extinction – now we’re risking another | George Monbiot
The Devon coastline reveals that Earth was in a near-lifeless state for up to five million years after the last extinction event
Budleigh Salterton, on the south coast of Devon, sits above the most frightening cliffs on Earth. They are not particularly high. Though you don’t want to stand beneath them, they are not especially prone to collapse. The horror takes another form. It is contained in the story they tell. For they capture the moment at which life on Earth almost came to an end.
The sediments preserved in these cliffs were laid down in the early Triassic period, just after the greatest mass extinction in the history of multicellular life that brought the Permian period to an end 252m years ago. Around 90% of species died, and fish and four-footed animals were more or less exterminated between 30 degrees north of the equator and 40 degrees south.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Global reforestation company launches accelerator funding for carbon credit projects
Political prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah will escalate hunger strike during Cop27
British-Egyptian activist says he will cease drinking, raising fears he may die while officials attend summit
A British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist has said he will escalate his hunger strike inside a desert prison, raising concerns he could die while British officials attend the Cop27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a figurehead of Egypt’s 2011 uprising and one of the Middle East’s best-known political prisoners, has spent most of the past decade behind bars. Shortly after gaining British citizenship while in detention last year, he was sentenced to a further five years in a high-security prison on charges of “spreading false news” for sharing a social media post about torture.
Continue reading...‘I got sucked under the road’: boy rescued from Melbourne stormwater drain recounts miracle escape
Jake Gilbert, 11, has been reunited with his rescuers a week after he nearly drowned when sucked into flooded drain in Altona Meadows
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An 11-year-old boy who survived being sucked into a flooded stormwater drain has been reunited with his rescuers in Melbourne and gifted a new bike a week after the tumultuous ordeal.
Jake Gilbert was cycling with a friend in Altona Meadows last week when he rode across a submerged drain and was sucked 10 metres underneath a road.
Continue reading...National Trust to plant 1,200 hectares of flower-filled grassland in Devon
By 2030, project will help conserve wide range of threatened wildlife in south-west England
A network of flower-filled grasslands sweeping from the fringes of sandy beaches to moorland edges is being created by the National Trust in the south-west of England.
Designed to boost flora and fauna – and be a balm for human visitors – the new grassland is due to cover more than 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of land in north Devon by 2030.
Continue reading...China releases 2021-22 carbon market allocation draft for consultation
AGL resorts to “lights will go out” threat as pressure on board builds
AGL digs into the "blackout" scare campaign to defend the pace of coal closures ahead of a crucial shareholder meeting next week.
The post AGL resorts to “lights will go out” threat as pressure on board builds appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Flinders Uni to get virtual power plant based around EV fleet and V2G technology
Sunverge and Engie to provide virtual power plant based around EV fleet at Flinders University and vehicle-to-grid technology.
The post Flinders Uni to get virtual power plant based around EV fleet and V2G technology appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Carbon blockchain company partners with NZ company to launch $100 mln climate fund
Climate change: No glaciers on Kilimanjaro by 2050
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