Peak of French mountain now 4,807 metres high and fluctuates year by year due to changes in Alpine climate
Europe’s highest peak shrank by more than a metre last year, data has shown.
Mont Blanc in France now stands 4,807.47 metres above sea level, a team of surveyors from the Haute-Savoie regional department said on Wednesday, putting “the roof of Europe” 1.29 metres lower than in 2025.
Continue reading...Hundreds of people displaced in Bangka Belitung with conditions described as worst in a decade with wildlife also badly hit
A forest fire on Indonesia’s Sumatra island fuelled by El Niño has razed nearly 300 homes, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, an official has said, as the country battles devastating blazes and haze.
Residents first spotted the fire approaching their village in Bangka Belitung province on Saturday and tried to put it out themselves with portable water pumps, said the head of South Bangka regency, Riza Herdavid.
Continue reading...Marsala on island’s west coast badly affected after powerful storm approached from Mediterranean
Two tornadoes have struck the coastal town of Marsala in western Sicily, injuring dozens of people, damaging buildings including a school, and overturning cars.
A series of videos began to circulate on Friday morning showing two waterspouts approaching the Sicilian town from the sea as people braced for their arrival.
Continue reading...Inquest under way into why President Lula’s success in curbing Amazon deforestation has not led to success at polls
More fire, more ash, more crime, more death. And a globally important ecosystem driven ever more rapidly towards a point of no return. That is the prospect for the Amazon rainforest for at least the next four years if Flávio Bolsonaro holds on to the lead he established this week in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election.
This appears to be of far more concern to the outside world than to voters in Latin America’s biggest, richest and most biodiverse nation.
Continue reading...Researchers found the shift from open woodland to dense forest after 1788 led to more intense fires, consistent with loss of cultural burning practices
The drastic land use changes wreaked by colonisation created a “catastrophic wildfire loop” that rendered south-east Australia more susceptible to climate-fuelled bushfires, experts say.
A team of researchers, working with the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, an organisation that represents traditional owners, reconstructed 1,000 years of vegetation and fire history at Purghagoolah, a lake surrounded by forest in Croajingolong national park in Gippsland, Victoria.
Continue reading...‘Techno-optimism’ may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes needed
Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by the climate crisis are less likely to engage in civic action on the issue, according to a study.
The report from the London School of Economics found they are 23% less likelyto sign petitions or take part in protests than peers who doubt that technology is the answer. They are also 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes, from reducing flights to changing to a vegan or vegetarian diet.
Continue reading...‘Techno-optimism’ may lead to reliance on unproven solutions at expense of societal changes needed
Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by the climate crisis are less likely to engage in civic action on the issue, according to a study.
The report from the London School of Economics found they are 23% less likelyto sign petitions or take part in protests than peers who doubt that technology is the answer. They are also 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes, from reducing flights to changing to a vegan or vegetarian diet.
Continue reading...Government report finds the country could be hit with more frequent and intense heatwaves, as well as damaging storms and cyclones
New Zealand could be hit with more frequent and intense heatwaves and catastrophic glacier melts in the near future, as greenhouse gas levels hit record highs, a new report about the nation’s climate has revealed.
Released on Wednesday, the Our Atmosphere and Climate 2026 report shows New Zealand is experiencing mounting climate pressures, which will have wide-reaching implications for the environment, native species and communities.
Continue reading...For-profit water corporations, federal cuts and climate crisis are ‘supercharging water rate hikes’, study co-author says
US households are paying 62% more for drinking water than they did a decade ago – outpacing inflation, grocery prices and household incomes, according to a new study.
Food & Water Watch, a Washington DC-based non-profit, analyzed 2025 billing data from the 500 largest community water systems in the US, which together serve about 155 million people, or 45% of the country’s population. The analysis compared current rates with data from a similar Food & Water Watch survey conducted in 2015. The study does not include wastewater or storm water charges, which are often billed separately from drinking water service.
Continue reading...A researcher at a climate change think tank says the Conservative policy would be a ‘disaster for first time buyers’
Yesterday, as a gimmick, the Tories were handing out “Bottler Burnham” bottles of water (“0% strength”) to make a point about Burnham supposedly cancelling plans for an early election under pressure from the Tories. It is a version of a stunt they pulled in 2008 when they gave journalists bottles of a “Bottler Brown” beer. (Gordon Brown did pull plans for an early election at the last minute; this time the jibe is unfair, because there were no Burnham plans for an early election.)
The new bottles feature the image of Burnham produced by the Manchester artist Stan Chow.
The SNP’s effective ban on new nuclear energy in Scotland flies in the face of common-sense.
No part of Great Britain should be missing out on plans for new nuclear renewal.
Continue reading...EU Copernicus report shows surface air temperatures from June to August were 2.5C above decadal average
The scorching heat that persistently baked western Europe this summer was the worst on record, a report has found, with more than half the continent seared by “very strong” heat stress that felt hotter than 38C.
Surface air temperatures in western Europe from June to August were 2.5C above the recent decadal average, according to an update from the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service on Friday, while milder but still deadly heat across the rest of the continent made the summer Europe’s third hottest on record.
Continue reading...The injection of thermal energy comes amid an increasing rise in sea levels and continuing acidification
A record-breaking 23 zettajoules of heat was sunk into the world’s seas last year, leaving ocean waters hotter, higher and less hospitable, a report has found.
The explosive addition of thermal energy, which was almost 40 times greater than all the energy humanity used that year, comes amid far-reaching changes to the deep water bodies fundamental to life on Earth.
Continue reading...A new tool called Carbon Impacts Tracer can be used to estimate climate impact from emissions across eight metrics, including lost food production
The biggest coal project before authorities in New South Wales, the Hunter Valley Operations mine, will emit the equivalent of about 809m tonnes of climate-warming carbon dioxide if it wins approval.
That number, for most people, will carry little meaning, as might the calculation that adding that amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere will cause an extra 0.00036C of global heating.
But what if the public was instead told that that amount of carbon dioxide would expose almost half a million people to unprecedented heat or kill nearly 15 million coral colonies on the Great Barrier Reef every time it bleaches?
All those statistics come from a new tool that translates the emissions from burning fossil fuels into estimated real-world climate effects taken from peer-reviewed climate studies.
“Small numbers in global warming can mean catastrophic impacts,” says Prof Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist at the Australian National University who is part of a team launching the Carbon Impacts Tracer.
Continue reading...Fossil fuel firms have spent years trying to regulate climate research by donating to US universities, study authors argue
Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study.
The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research.
Continue reading...Powered by sun and wind, the uncrewed vehicle will collect data to help Australian scientists better understand how oceans absorb emissions
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A small uncrewed vessel has embarked on a lap around Antarctica and may not return for months.
The seven-metre craft, which looks like a large kayak in hi-vis orange, is expected to travel about 22,000km through inhospitable waters, propelled by powerful westerly winds and energy from the sun. The journey is seven times the distance between Sydney and Perth.
Continue reading...What caused the turtles to begin nesting farther north than usual is the ‘million dollar question’
A sea turtle crawled out of the surf in southern California last weekend around sunset and started laying eggs in the sand.
People on Huntington Beach who saw the female olive ridley sea turtle were shocked and excited. And they weren’t the only ones freaking out, said Justin Viezbicke, the California stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (Noaa).
Continue reading...El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers
The UK has warned countries around the world that the climate and nature crises and the coming El Niño threaten their national security and defence, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer.
Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, made a presentation to the foreign ministers of the EU as well as Kenya and other countries on Wednesday night at a private meeting during the UN general assembly in New York, based on the report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of natural systems around the world would lead to conflict, migration and food shortages.
Continue reading...Campaigners say plan marks notable shift away from oil and gas as previously pledges were only for carbon neutrality
Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, has committed to phasing out fossil fuels by 2045, despite fierce debate about its green policies.
In a roadmap published on Wednesday, the German government set out for the first time an explicit promise of “transitioning away” from fossil fuels. Previous pledges were only for “carbon neutrality”.
Continue reading...Cooperation on OceanEye, which aims to create ‘real-time’ model of world’s oceans, comes amid efforts to boost EU ties
Britain is to join a major new ocean science programme, led by the EU, to better forecast extreme weather and climate events, the environment secretary is to announce in New York.
The announcement on Wednesday will come as Andy Burnham’s government aims to rebuild the UK’s relationship with Europe, and follows warnings this year’s “supersized” El Niño, tracked in the Pacific Ocean, will fuel more extreme weather globally.
Continue reading...Scientists found unequal impact of the climate crisis would not be reversed even if implicit goal of the 2015 Paris agreement is achieved
The unequal impact of the climate crisis on the world’s poorest people, including those in tropical areas, has been highlighted by new research that finds they will be among the last to feel the benefits if global greenhouse gas emissions are cut to net zero.
Temperatures have risen more significantly in tropical areas relative to their historic range than at higher latitudes, including in wealthier countries in Europe and North America.
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