Residents and campaigners say fast-growing Sitka spruces are spoiling the landscape
Ireland is ramping up its response to the climate crisis by planting forests – lots of forests. East, west, north, south, the plan is to plant forests, the more the better.
With enough trees, goes the hope, Ireland can compensate for many of the cows, vehicles and fossil-burning power plants that make it one of Europe’s worst climate offenders.
Continue reading...Developing countries must prepare now for profound impact, disaster representative says
Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.
Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”
Continue reading...Sam Edmond, an Antarctic tour guide and photographer, took these images from a helicopter along the Eastern coastline between Cape Adare and the Cooperation Sea during summer. The continent’s vastness and the scale of the climate challenge it faces is palpable from up above. Across both polar regions, ice cover has become an important way to measure the impact of global warming, and the risk and logistical complications of operating aircraft around the Antarctic mean that perspective is both rare and valuable
Continue reading...Activists say comments by Opec head prove world opinion is turning against fossil fuels
Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of honour that the head of the world’s most powerful oil cartel believes their campaign may be the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry.
The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify along with extreme weather.
Continue reading...New approaches to disposing of the dead needed as graveyards and crematoria are almost full
From burials in pyramids to scattering ashes and even plastination, there has been no shortage of ideas about how to deal with human corpses.
But with graveyards and crematoria almost full in Britain, the conundrum of what to do with the dead has resurfaced with new urgency. Now a leading public health expert has suggested the sides of motorways, cycle paths and even brownfield or former industrial sites could be transformed to house the dead.
Continue reading...Research shows a trillion trees could be planted to capture huge amount of carbon dioxide
Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.
As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating. New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as “mind-blowing”.
Continue reading...Doyte lives in South Omo, Ethiopia, one of the most remote areas in the world and hard hit by the climate crisis. As Lord of the Rain, it’s Doyte’s job to summon the rains, but for five years they haven’t come. Ethiopia’s economy is booming, fuelled by green power and climate-resilient policies. But neither the government, nor Doyte, can reverse the catastrophic change that’s devastating their environment
Continue reading...The EU-Mercosur trade deal is good news for Brazil’s huge beef industry but devastating for the rainforest and environment
European leaders have thrown the Amazon rainforest under a Volkswagen bus in a massive cows-for-cars trade deal with Brazil and three other South American nations.
The EU-Mercosur agreement – the largest in Europe’s history, according to officials – will make it cheaper for Brazilian farmers to export agricultural products, particularly beef, despite growing evidence that cattle ranching is the primary driver of deforestation.
Continue reading...Searing heat shows crisis is ‘here and now’, say scientists, and worse than predicted
The record-breaking heatwave that struck France and other European nations in June was made at least five – and possibly 100 – times more likely by the climate crisis, scientists have calculated.
Such heatwaves are also about 4C hotter than a century ago, the researchers said. Furthermore, the heatwaves hitting Europe are more frequent and more severe than climate models have predicted, they said.
Continue reading...The sea ice circling Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a record low in just three years according to a new report just released by the US space agency Nasa. The study calculates that after 2014 the region lost floating ice larger than the size of Mexico, leaving scientists baffled
Continue reading...Plunge is far faster than in Arctic and may lead to more global heating, say scientists
The vast expanse of sea ice around Antarctica has suffered a “precipitous” fall since 2014, satellite data shows, and fell at a faster rate than seen in the Arctic.
The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years. The cause of the sharp Antarctic losses is as yet unknown and only time will tell whether the ice recovers or continues to decline.
Continue reading...The challenge for farmers is how to discuss global warming without scaring people out of food production
The last election may have left the impression with voters that farmers and rural people in general do not accept climate science because there was no seismic shift of seats.
Yet this week the agricultural thinktank, the Australian Farm Institute, gathered farmers and their advocacy groups to talk about the impacts of global warming on the already risky business of farming.
Continue reading...In the world’s northernmost town, temperatures have risen by 4C, devastating homes, wildlife and even the cemetery. Will the rest of the planet heed its warning?
Continue reading...David Attenborough and the climate crisis take centre stage, while single-use plastic is banned for the first time. But have the festival’s environmental efforts gone far enough?
Twelve years ago, Sheryl Crow was laughed at for suggesting that green-minded people should use only a single square of toilet paper every time they go to the loo (or two to three sheets for “pesky situations”). Well, we’re not laughing now, are we?
On the day before the hottest day of the year so far (temperatures at Glastonbury hit 30C, elsewhere in the UK 35C), Crow knocks out hit after hit on the Pyramid stage under a giant globe, Glastonbury’s reminder that we’ve only got one planet, and dedicates Soak Up the Sun to Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist and school striker. Thunberg’s spirit is embedded in Worthy Farm this year. There are murals of her face with the slogan: “What would Greta do?”
Continue reading...With 38C forecast, emergency services work to contain fire in Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid region
Firefighters in central Spain are battling strong winds and high temperatures as they struggle to control a fire that has already destroyed over 5,000 acres in the provinces of Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.
The fire broke out in Almorox near Toledo on Friday just as the one in Tarragona province in north-east Spain was brought under control, having reduced some 15,000 acres of woodland to ashes.
Continue reading...One is America’s youngest-ever congresswoman, the other a Swedish schoolgirl. Two of the most powerful voices on the climate speak for the first time
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enters a boardroom at her constituency office in Queens, New York, after a short delay which, a political aide hopes, hasn’t been caused by a constituent waylaying her in the corridor. (“They can get really excited to meet her.”) Greta Thunberg is in her home in Sweden, her father testing the technology for the video link while the teenager waits in the background. The activists have never met nor spoken but, as two of the most visible climate campaigners in the world, they are keenly aware of each other.
Thunberg, now 16, catapulted to fame last year for skipping school every Friday to stand outside the Swedish parliament, protesting against political inaction over the climate crisis and sparking an international movement, the school strike for climate, in which millions of other children followed suit. Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district is, at 29, the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress, whose election over a well-funded incumbent in 2018 was a huge upset to politics-as-usual. She has been in office for less than a year, which seems extraordinary given the amount of coverage she has generated. In February, Ocasio-Cortez submitted the Green New Deal to the US House of Representatives, calling for, among other things, the achievement of “net-zero” greenhouse gases within a decade and “a full transition off fossil fuels”, as well as retrofitting all buildings in the US to meet new energy efficient standards.
Continue reading...The 10 candidates on stage in Miami accurately conveyed the urgency of global heating but missed chances to show how it underlies all key political issues
Thursday’s Democratic debate demonstrated just how far the the US is from contemplating the climate crisis as a threat that will touch almost all areas of American life and policymaking.
Once again, debate moderators waited until nearly 80 minutes into the debate to pose questions on the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Millions of people have taken to the streets over the past three weeks in opposition to an extradition law. The Guardian correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison discusses covering the demonstrations and what could happen next. Plus: Angie Zelter on why she doesn’t regret being arrested at an Extinction Rebellion protest
Hong Kong has been rocked by its biggest political crisis in decades, with millions of people taking to the streets in central business districts to protest against a proposed law that would allow the extradition of suspects to mainland China, where the court system has a conviction rate as high as 99%.
The chief executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, eventually suspended the bill and apologised. Emma Graham-Harrison, who has been reporting from the special administrative region, tells India Rakusen about the murder case that prompted the extradition legislation and why those in Hong Kong fear Beijing is attempting to erode their democracy.
Continue reading...Germany imposes speed limits on highways while schools in France remain closed
European cities are taking exceptional steps to limit the impact of a historic early summer heatwave as temperatures across the continent approached monthly and, in some places, all-time records.
Authorities have warned that temperatures could pass 40C and reach 45C in parts of the continent by Saturday as a plume of hot air moves north from the Sahara, sucked northwards by a stalled storm over the Atlantic and high pressure in central Europe.
Continue reading...Fund managers call on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power ahead of G20
Superannuation funds and investors representing US$34tn in assets – nearly half of the total under management across the globe – have called on world leaders to bring in carbon pricing and phase out coal power to limit global heating to 1.5C.
Released ahead of a G20 leaders meeting in Osaka, Japan, the statement by 477 institutional investors urges world leaders to accelerate their response to the climate crisis to ensure the goals of the 2015 Paris climate deal can be met.
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