Category Archives: Climate crisis

Methane emissions: Australian cattle industry suggests shift from net zero target to ‘climate neutral’ approach

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The US cattle industry adopted a ‘climate neutral’ goal in 2021 but scientists say that ‘misses the point’ in keeping global temperature rises below 1.5C

Cattle Australia is lobbying the red meat sector to ditch its net zero target in favour of a “climate neutral” goal that would require far more modest reductions in methane emissions.

The $75bn red meat industry, led by Meat and Livestock Australia, announced a target of reaching net zero emissions by 2030 seven years ago, in an attempt to maintain its social licence and drive investments in emissions reduction technology.

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Ghent students occupy university building in climate and Gaza protest

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More than 200 expected to join protest calling for climate action and to cut ties with Israeli institutions

More than 100 students have occupied Ghent University in the first European protest to fuse demands about Gaza and the climate crisis.

Ghent’s centrepiece UFO building was peacefully taken over by students calling for concrete action to meet the university’s 2030 climate plans, and asking the university to cut ties with institutions connected to the Israeli military.

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Cop29 summit to call for peace between warring states, says host Azerbaijan

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Organisers of this year’s environmental conference hope cooperation on green issues could help ease global tensions

This year’s Cop29 UN climate summit will be the first “Cop of peace”, focusing on the prevention of future climate-fuelled conflicts and using international cooperation on green issues to help heal existing tensions, according to plans being drawn up by organisers.

Nations may be asked to observe a “Cop truce”, suspending hostilities for the fortnight-long duration of the conference, modelled on the Olympic truce, which is observed by most governments during the summer and winter Olympic Games.

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Australia news live: Pauline Hanson ‘plainly targeted’ Greens senator with well-known racist phrase, court told

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Final submissions begin in racial discrimination case brought by Mehreen Faruqi against Hanson. Follow the today’s news live

As we flagged earlier, the treasurer Jim Chalmers will today announce foreign investment changes, with approvals to be made quicker and greater scrutiny to be placed on potential risks.

You can read all the details on this from Peter Hannam below:

Right now, we treat investments from right around the world more or less the same. We want to streamline it for the less-risky investments so we can devote much more time and energy and resources to screening the sorts of investments that we’re seeing in critical industries – like critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data, and the like.

This is all about strengthening the foreign investment framework to make sure that investment is in the national interest. We want to maximise the right kind of investment, but we want to minimise risk and that’s what these changes I’ll announce today are all about.

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Barclays accused of greenwashing over financing for Italian oil company

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Exclusive: Environmental groups say bank is misleading public over ‘sustainable’ financing for Eni as company vastly expands fossil fuel production

Barclays is being accused by environmental groups of greenwashing after helping to arrange €4bn (£3.4bn) in financing for the Italian oil company Eni in a way that allows them to qualify towards its $1tn sustainable financing goal.

Environmental groups have said the London-based bank is deliberately misleading the public by labelling the financial instruments as “sustainable” at the same time that Eni is in the midst of a multibillion-pound fossil fuel expansion drive designed to increase production.

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Wave of exceptionally hot weather scorches south and south-east Asia

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Warnings of dangerous temperatures across parts of Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh and India as hottest months of the year are made worse by El Niño

Millions of people across South and Southeast Asia are facing sweltering temperatures, with unusually hot weather forcing schools to close and threatening public health.

Thousands of schools across the Philippines, including in the capital region Metro Manila, have suspended in-person classes. Half of the country’s 82 provinces are experiencing drought, and nearly 31 others are facing dry spells or dry conditions, according to the UN, which has called for greater support to help the country prepare for similar weather events in the future. The country’s upcoming harvest will probably be below average, the UN said.

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Process raw materials in Africa, urges top environmentalist

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Few economic and social benefits will come to Africans if processing is all done overseas, says Wanjira Mathai

Africa must take greater control in the industries it supplies with raw materials to lift its people from poverty and seize its own destiny in a low-carbon world, one of the continent’s leading environmentalists has urged.

Wanjira Mathai, the managing director for Africa and global partnerships at the World Resources Institute thinktank, said much more of what the continent produced must be processed and made use of close to where it is produced, if the world is to shift to a low-carbon footing.

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Mosquito-borne diseases spreading in Europe due to climate crisis, says expert

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Illnesses such as dengue and malaria to reach unaffected parts of northern Europe, America, Asia and Australia, conference to hear

Mosquito-borne diseases are spreading across the globe, and particularly in Europe, due to climate breakdown, an expert has said.

The insects spread illnesses such as malaria and dengue fever, the prevalences of which have hugely increased over the past 80 years as global heating has given them the warmer, more humid conditions they thrive in.

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Woodside Energy’s climate plan rejected by shareholders in ‘globally unprecedented’ rebuke

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Investors lodge 58% protest vote against emissions report but defiant chair Richard Goyder maintains company is part of solution to climate change

Woodside Energy has suffered an embarrassing rebuke of its climate credentials after its emissions plan was overwhelmingly rejected by shareholders at its annual general meeting on Wednesday.

Investors lodged a 58% vote against Woodside’s climate report, representing the strongest protest recorded against any of the dozens of listed companies around the world that regularly put climate-related resolutions to shareholders.

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‘Children won’t be able to survive’: inter-American court to hear from climate victims

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Historic hearing will receive submissions from people whose human rights have been affected by climate change

Julian Medina comes from a long line of fishers in the north of Colombia’s Gulf of Morrosquillo who use small-scale and often traditional methods to catch species such as mackerel, tuna and cojinúa.

Medina went into business as a young man but was drawn back to his roots, and ended up leading a fishing organisation. For years he has campaigned against the encroachment of fossil fuel companies, pollution and overfishing, which are destroying the gulf’s delicate ecosystem and people’s livelihoods.

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Biden marks Earth Day with $7bn ‘solar for all’ investment amid week of climate action

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Funds will be targeted at disadvantaged areas to create 200,000 jobs, after last week’s oil and gas lease restrictions in Alaska

Joe Biden marked Monday’s Earth Day by announcing a $7bn investment in solar energy projects nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities, and unveiling a week-long series of what the White House say will be “historic climate actions”.

The president was speaking at Prince William Forest Park, in Triangle, Virginia, touting his environmental record and unveiling measures to tackle the climate crisis and increase access to, and lower costs of, clean energy.

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Weather tracker: Mexico swelters under season’s first heatwave

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Anticyclonic conditions have allowed temperatures to reach 35-45C across much of the country

Mexico has been undergoing its first heatwave of the season. The heatwave started on Sunday 14 April, when Mexico City recorded a new date record with a high of 32.9C, surpassing the previous record of 32C from 1998.

Anticyclonic conditions over the region have been responsible for this heatwave by inhibiting cloud formation, allowing temperatures to rise significantly. These conditions persisted through much of last week, allowing temperatures to reach 35-45C across much of the country.

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Far right’s rise in Portugal could threaten ambitious climate action

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Environmentalists fear focus on economy may undermine country’s climate transition – one of most radical in Europe

Portugal has been among Europe’s more ambitious countries in terms of climate action, but the rise of the far right in recent elections could threaten the positive steps the country has taken.

At the end of 2023, Portugal broke records as it went for six consecutive days relying solely on renewable energy. But national elections in March this year marked a significant shift in the political landscape, with the far-right party Chega (Enough) making a major breakthrough. Having more than quadrupled its number of MPs from 12 to 50, Chega holds considerable sway in the 230-seat parliament, where it could influence legislation.

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Sunak has ‘set Britain back’ on net zero, says UK’s climate adviser

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Chris Stark, head of the Climate Change Committee, says Tories’ decision to dilute key green policies has had huge diplomatic impact

Rishi Sunak has given up Britain’s reputation as a world leader in the fight against the climate crisis and has “set us back” by failing to prioritise the issue in the way his predecessors in No 10 did, the government’s green adviser has warned.

Chris Stark, the outgoing head of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said that the prime minister had “clearly not” championed the issue following a high-profile speech last year in which he made a significant U-turn on the government’s climate commitments. The criticism comes after Sunak was accused of trying to avoid scrutiny of Britain’s climate policies by failing to appoint a new chair of the CCC.

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Unilever to scale back environmental and social pledges

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Environmental groups say bosses should ‘hang their heads in shame’ as firm bows to pressure from shareholders to cut costs

Unilever is to scale back its environmental and social aims, provoking critics to say its board should “hang their heads in shame”.

The consumer goods company behind brands ranging from Dove beauty products to Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream was seen as perhaps the foremost proponent of corporate ethics – particularly under the tenure of its Dutch former boss Paul Polman.

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Bid to secure spot for glacier in Icelandic presidential race heats up

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Idea Angela Rawlings had a decade ago for Snæfellsjökull has snowballed into a full-blown campaign with a team of 50 people

Standing in the shadow of Iceland’s Snæfellsjökull, – a 700,000-year-old glacier perched on a volcano and visible to half the country’s population on any given day – in 2010, Angela Rawlings was struck by an unconventional thought.

“It suddenly just came to me. What if the glacier was president?” said Rawlings. It was a seemingly unorthodox way to push forward a movement that was already swiftly advancing; Ecuador had enshrined legal rights for nature while Māori in New Zealand were working to secure legal personhood for the Whanganui River.

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Lethal heatwave in Sahel worsened by fossil fuel burning, study finds

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Deaths from record temperatures in Mali reportedly led to full morgues turning away bodies this month


The deadly protracted heatwave that filled hospitals and mortuaries in the Sahel region of Africa earlier this month would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption, a new analysis has revealed.

Mali registered the hottest day in its history on 3 April as temperatures hit 48.5C in the south-western city of Kayes. Intense heat continued across a wide area of the country for more than five days and nights, giving vulnerable people no time for recovery.

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Global heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record

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The percentage of reef areas experiencing bleaching-level heat stress is increasing by about 1% a week, scientists say

Global heating has pushed the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching event that is on track to be the most extensive on record, US government scientists have confirmed.

Some 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough to cause bleaching, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch said.

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Rope-entangled right whale spotted off coast of New England

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The marine mammals are increasingly endangered as warmer waters push them into ship traffic and fishing gear

A North Atlantic right whale has been spotted entangled in rope off New England, worsening an already devastating year for the vanishing animals, federal authorities said.

Right whales number less than 360 and are vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with ships. The entangled whale was seen on Wednesday about 50 miles (80km) south of Rhode Island’s Block Island, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

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Shell says it ‘lobbies for energy transition’ during climate ruling appeal

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Company is fighting Dutch court ruling that says it must emit 45% less CO2 by 2030 than in 2019

Shell has argued that it “lobbies for, not against, the energy transition” on the final day of its appeal against an important climate ruling.

The fossil fuel company is fighting the decision of a Dutch court in 2021 that forces it to pump 45% less planet-heating CO2 into the atmosphere by 2030 than it did in 2019. In court on Friday, Shell argued the ruling is ineffective, onerous and does not fit into the existing legal system.

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