Heatwaves around Mediterranean have damaged harvests and forced producers to import from South America
Europe has almost run out of local olive oil supplies and is set for more shortages, after extreme weather damaged harvests for a second year.
The world’s largest producer has said it is having to import supplies from South America to keep up with demand.
Continue reading...Hong’s three-year sentence is the latest in a string of convictions for environmental campaigners in the country
A leading Vietnamese climate activist has been jailed for tax evasion, the latest environmentalist put behind bars by the country’s communist government.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Hoang Thi Minh Hong to three years in prison for dodging $275,000 in taxes related to her environmental campaign group Change, her lawyer, Nguyen Van Tu, said.
Continue reading...Labor heavyweight also warns of the danger of environment movement fading as he throws support behind new alliance
The former New South Wales premier Bob Carr has backed an alliance of conservation groups calling for tougher environmental protections and an overhaul of the state’s land-clearing laws.
A report from the new alliance – called the Stand Up for Nature alliance – calls for forests and native vegetation to be protected by “ending habitat destruction, run away land clearing and industrial native forest logging”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: PM says the ‘right decisions’ are needed to ensure Australia emerges a winner in the global race to renewable energy
Anthony Albanese has signalled he will do more to accelerate the transition to low emissions after the voice referendum has concluded, declaring the “right decisions” are needed to ensure Australia emerges a winner in the global race to renewable energy.
Albanese’s signpost during an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast comes as the government is working up a policy response to challenges and opportunities created by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act ahead of the prime minister’s visit to Washington in late October.
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Canterbury Road fire: firetrucks wetting down area
Supt Adam Dewberry with Fire and Rescue NSW has just provided us with an update on the factory fire on Canterbury Road in Sydney’s south-west.
Vacancy rates under 1% in most of these suburbs show the immense strain on housing availability. When you’re allocating nearly half your income on rent … the financial stress becomes unbearable.
Our index is more than just numbers; it’s a call to action. Policymakers and stakeholders need to acknowledge this growing crisis.
The relentless climb in rent and plummeting vacancy rates are not just statistics but indicators of a quality of life that is rapidly deteriorating for Australian renters.
Continue reading...Experts blame rising sea temperatures caused by climate crisis for cub deaths at Unesco heritage site
As many as eight in 10 brown bear cubs born this year in a remote part of northern Japan have died amid a shortage of salmon, with experts blaming rising sea temperatures caused by the climate crisis.
Along with acorns, pink salmon are an important source of food for the estimated 500 brown bears living along Hokkaido’s Shiretoko peninsula, a Unesco world heritage site known for its dramatic coastline and wild animals.
Continue reading...The 50-point plan also aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and includes new projects for offshore wind farms
Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a national “ecological plan” to reduce France’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and end the use of fossil fuels by 2030.
Speaking after a special ministerial council at the Elysée, the French president said an extra €10bn (£8.7bn) would be put towards the 50-point programme, which he described as “ecology à la Française”.
Continue reading...Former British PM calls for 3% levy on oil and gas export revenues of biggest producers to generate $25bn a year for global south
Petrostates should pay a small percentage of their soaring oil and gas revenues to help poor countries cope with the climate crisis, the former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has urged.
Countries with large oil and gas deposits have enjoyed a record bonanza in the last two years, amounting to about $4tn (£3.3tn) last year for the industry globally. Levying a 3% windfall tax on the oil and gas export revenues of the biggest-producing countries would yield about $25bn a year.
Continue reading...Attempt to show Labour as ‘anti-motorist’ at forefront of Conservative pre-election campaign
After a week in which Rishi Sunak rowed back on the UK’s climate commitments and delayed a ban on petrol cars, it seems he is making a pitch to drivers a key part of his pre-election campaign. Here are the wedge issues the Tories are expected to deploy against Labour to paint them as “anti-motorist”:
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour leader pledges party would stand ‘strong on the UK’s climate commitments’ in contrast to Sunak’s net zero reversal
The UK Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, is calling for action to transform the nation into a clean energy superpower after the British Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement earlier this week of new reversals and delays to net zero commitments.
In a video address that organisers of the Global Citizen Festival (GCF) plan to play on Saturday afternoon at an event in New York City, Starmer said: “The world is facing serious threats from extreme poverty to criminal gangs to climate change. Only progressive internationalist politics can rise to these challenges and deliver a secure future.
Continue reading...Six Portuguese young people claim inadequate policies to tackle global heating breach their human rights
A key plank of the UK government’s defence against the biggest climate legal action in the world next week has fallen away as a result of the U-turn by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, on green policies.
The UK is one of 32 countries being taken to the European court of human rights on Wednesday by a group of Portuguese young people. They will argue in the grand chamber of the Strasbourg court that the nations’ policies to tackle global heating are inadequate and in breach of their human rights obligations.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Poll finds fewer than a quarter of people trust PM to tackle climate crisis after policy U-turn
Only 22% of people trust Rishi Sunak to tackle the climate crisis after his announcement that he will weaken the UK’s net zero policies.
An exclusive poll for the Guardian found that fewer than a quarter of people trust the prime minister to take on the challenge. A total of 53% said they did not trust him, while 19% said they did not know.
Continue reading...World faces ‘malaria emergency’ from resistance to insecticides, waning efficacy of drugs, funding shortfalls and climate change
African leaders have warned that the world is facing the “biggest malaria emergency” of the past two decades.
Heads of state and experts came together in a show of unity to call for urgent action on malaria at the UN general assembly on Friday, saying progress on eradicating the disease faced serious setbacks from mosquitoes’ growing resistance to insecticides, and the decreased effectiveness of antimalarial drugs and diagnostic tests.
Continue reading...‘My patience ran out,’ said Christiana Figueres, who for years had advocated oil companies should be involved in policymaking talks
Fossil fuel companies should not be included in the Cop28 climate summit if they continue to block climate action, the UN’s former climate chief told reporters on Thursday.
“If they are going to be there only to be obstructors, and only to put spanners into the system, they should not be there,” said Christiana Figueres, who was pivotal to the delivery of the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2015.
Continue reading...Climate Change Committee head says ‘we’ve moved backwards’ after PM defends decision to delay ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars
Robinson quotes from Sunak’s resignation letter as chancellor, in which he said if something sounded too good to be true, it probably wasn’t true. Weren’t you doing that in the speech yesterday?
Sunak does not accept that. He says in his speech he accepted change was needed. He just want a “realistic approach”.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says war impossible to stop while Russia vetoes all efforts at peace; Guterres condemns world leaders’ inaction on climate crisis
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, addressed UN ambassadors at the annual general assembly on Tuesday where he accused America of fanning the flames of violence in Ukraine, prompting protests from Israel’s representative to the UN.
Raisi claimed any Iranian-made drones hitting Ukrainian cities had been sold before the war started and said he was in favour of peace in Ukraine, on the same day that Tehran hosted a Russian defence delegation led by its defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Continue reading...PM says people to be given more time to switch gas boilers to heat pumps, and ban on sale of new petrol and diesel cars delayed
Climate scientists have expressed dismay at reports that Rishi Sunak is to row back on net zero commitments, arguing that this would be harmful not just environmentally, but economically too.
Prof Myles Allen, professor of geosystem sciences at Oxford University, said:
We haven’t heard the actual speech yet, but we all have to hope the PM is true to his word that he is looking for better ways to deliver net zero, not just slower ways. As we have found time and again in Britain, dithering costs money. The USA is seeing other countries’ faltering as an opportunity to get ahead. It will be sad indeed if we just see it as an opportunity to join the laggards.
It’s not pragmatic, it’s pathetic. This rolling back on emissions cuts for short-term political gain will undermine the transition to net zero and with it the future opportunities, prosperity and safety of the entire country.
Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide which causes global warming which amplifies the consequences of extreme weather events, as we have so clearly seen this summer. Climate change will continue until we reach net zero globally, and we will then have to suffer the consequences of that warmer world for decades or more. It also matters how we reach net zero, not just when – delaying action means more emissions which means more severe consequences.
Continue reading...UK not a serious player in global race for green growth, says Greenpeace, while Oxfam says move is ‘betrayal’
Scientists and environmental groups have expressed anger and dismay at the U-turn on net zero expected by the prime minister.
Continue reading...The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering says ministers must ‘make up for lost time’ with more ambitious policy
Australian engineers and technology scientists have urged the Albanese government to “make up for lost time” and set itself a “monumental challenge” by setting a target to wipe out the country’s climate footprint by 2035 – 15 years earlier than currently proposed.
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, representing nearly 900 leading engineers and scientists, called on the government to set a goal of reaching net zero emissions in just 12 years, arguing it could be achieved with existing mature, low-carbon technology.
Continue reading...Teresa Ribera calls for alert systems in every country by 2027 after spate of natural disasters across the world
The latest spate of natural disasters – from the floods in Libya, Greece and Spain to the wildfires in Hawaii and Canada – has further underscored the need for early warning systems to help the world cope with the realities of the climate emergency, Spain’s environment minister has said.
Speaking to the Guardian as she prepared to travel to New York to take part in the UN’s climate ambition summit and sign a landmark treaty to protect the high seas, Teresa Ribera said the calamities laid bare the challenges the planet faced.
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