Category Archives: Climate crisis

Whitehaven Coal faces rare shareholder action over mining plans and CEO’s $7m bonus

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Australian miner paying ‘massive bonuses’ for ‘steamrolling ahead with an outdated and unacceptably risky coal growth strategy’, activists say

Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia’s biggest coal producers, faces a rare “second strike” from shareholders this week as climate activists seek to draw attention to the miner’s plans to ramp up volumes and resulting carbon emissions.

The ASX-listed company received a 41% vote against its executives’ remuneration report at last year’s annual general meeting. A vote of at least 25% at this year’s AGM on Wednesday would force a motion to spill Whitehaven’s board.

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Corporations using ‘ineffectual’ carbon offsets are slowing path to ‘real zero’, more than 60 climate scientists say

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Pledge signed by experts from nine countries reflects concerns that offsets generated from forest-related projects may not have cut emissions

Carbon offsets used by corporations around the world to lower their reportable greenhouse gas emissions are “ineffectual” and “hindering the energy transition”, according to more than 60 leading climate change scientists.

A pledge signed by scientists from nine countries, including the UK, the US and Australia, said the “only path that can prevent further escalation of climate impacts” was “real zero” and not “net zero”.

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Man who lost home to coastal erosion loses court case against UK government

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Kevin Jordan and two other claimants argued the country’s climate adaptation plans were insufficient and unlawful

An East Anglian man who lost his home to coastal erosion has lost his high court challenge against the government’s climate adaptation plans.

Kevin Jordan was one of three claimants who argued the government’s plans for adapting to the existing and predicted impacts of climate change, known as the National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP3), were insufficient and unlawful.

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Cop29 host Azerbaijan set for major fossil gas expansion, report says

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Exclusive: Those with ‘interest in keeping world hooked on fossil fuels’ should not oversee climate talks, say report authors

Azerbaijan, the host of the Cop29 global climate summit, will see a large expansion of fossil gas production in the next decade, a new report has revealed. The authors said that the crucial negotiations should not be overseen by “those with a vested interest in keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels”.

Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, and its partners are set to raise the country’s annual gas production from 37bn cubic metres (bcm) today to 49bcm by 2033. Socar also recently agreed to increase gas exports to the European Union by 17% by 2026.

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Anti-fossil fuel comic that went viral in France arrives in UK

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World Without End topped bestseller lists but was criticised for embracing nuclear power

In 2019, France’s best known climate expert sat down to work with its most feted graphic novelist. The result? Perhaps the most terrifying comic ever drawn.

Part history, part analysis, part vision for the future, World Without End weaves the story of humanity’s rapacious appetite for fossil fuel energy, how it has made possible the society people take for granted, and its disastrous effects on the climate.

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Hundreds evacuated in Oakland after California brush fire grows out of control

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Residents told to flee as firefighters battle blaze, with two homes burned and several others damaged

A fast-moving fire fed by strong winds burned two homes on Friday and damaged several others in a hillside neighborhood in the city of Oakland, where roughly 500 people were ordered to evacuate, officials said.

Damon Covington, the city’s fire chief, said that at about 1.30pm, calls had come in reporting a fire in front of a home in the Oakland hills. Crews arrived as the inferno quickly grew with winds ranging from calm breezes to 40mph (64km/h) gusts during red-flag conditions.

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Overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about climate crisis

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Survey of young people aged 16-25 from all US states shows concerns across political spectrum

The overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about the climate crisis, and more than half say their concerns about the environment will affect where they decide to live and whether to have children, new research finds.

The study comes just weeks after back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, pummeled the south-eastern US. Flooding from Helene caused more than 600 miles of destruction, from Florida’s west coast to the mountains of North Carolina, while Milton raked across the Florida peninsula less than two weeks later.

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County Durham school drops plan to turn off heat on climate ‘blue nose day’

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Wolsingham school’s carbon-cutting event had been planned by pupils but parents raised concerns

A school has made a U-turn on a student-led plan to turn the heating off for a “blue nose” climate action day after parents raised concerns.

The heating was due to be turned off at Wolsingham school, County Durham, on Friday but the plan has now been postponed until the summer term of next year when it is likely to be warmer.

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Migrant deaths in New Mexico have increased tenfold in last two years

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In 2020, nine bodies were found near US-Mexico border. In the first eight months of 2024, there were 108.

Ten times as many migrants died in New Mexico near the US-Mexico border in each of the last two years compared with just five years ago.

During the first eight months of 2024, the bodies of 108 presumed migrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, were found near the border in New Mexico, according to the most recent data. Many of the bodies were discovered less than 10 miles (16km) from El Paso.

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‘I love the smell of success more than petrol’: investors break with tradition in world-leading climate campaign

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Investors say climate change poses biggest risk to their assets, and urge Albanese government to see the economic dangers of a slow path to net zero

Institutional investors dealing with portfolios in the trillions of dollars aren’t typically the most vocal climate campaigners. You won’t find many superannuation fund staff, fund managers, asset consultants or brokers with a placard on the streets or on top of a Newcastle coal train.

But you may increasingly find them on a screen you’re watching. Or at least their message.

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Europe’s medical schools to give more training on diseases linked to climate crisis

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New climate network will teach trainee doctors more about heatstroke, dengue and malaria and role of global warming in health

Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria will become a bigger part of the curriculum at medical schools across Europe in the face of the climate crisis.

Future doctors will also have more training on how to recognise and treat heatstroke, and be expected to take the climate impact of treatments such as inhalers for asthma into account, medical school leaders said, announcing the formation of the European Network on Climate & Health Education (Enche).

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‘Vengeful’ Trump withheld disaster aid and will do so again, ex-officials warn

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Former administration officials say Trump deliberately denied funds to states he deemed politically hostile

Donald Trump deliberately withheld disaster aid to states he deemed politically hostile to him as US president and will do so again unimpeded if he returns to the White House, several former Trump administration officials have warned.

As Hurricane Helene and then Hurricane Milton have ravaged much of the south-eastern US in the past two weeks, Trump has sought to pin blame upon Joe Biden’s administration for a ponderous response to the disasters, even suggesting that this was deliberate due to the number of Republican voters affected by the storms.

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Hurricane Milton live updates: Joe Biden to travel to Florida; more than 1,600 people rescued from floods and rubble

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US president to visit areas hit by hurricane on Sunday; more than 140 pets also rescued, says Florida governor Ron DeSantis in latest update

Hurricane Milton made landfall as a category 3 hurricane on Wednesday night at around 8.30pm near Siesta Key in Florida. For about eight hours, the storm brought intense rainfall, flooding, tornadoes, storm surge and strong winds before moving off over the ocean just north of Cape Canaveral as a category 1 hurricane.

Our visual team have put together this visual guide to the damage caused:

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Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century

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More than year’s worth of rain fell in two days in south-east Morocco, filling up lake that had been dry for decades

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

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Tornadoes, mass outages and deaths: what to know about Hurricane Milton’s impact

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Storm brought up to 10ft of storm surge and left millions at risk from flooding after hitting Florida on Wednesday

Hurricane Milton has killed at least nine people and left extensive property damage across Florida, hitting some areas previously affected by Hurricane Helene last month.

Here are the key takeaways from what we know about its impact and what experts are saying about a hurricane that it had been feared could be one of the worst in the state’s history.

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Hellish heat and primal fear: Croatian firefighters on frontline of climate crisis

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Firefighters are stoic about the risks they face but say climate change has affected every part of the job

A short drive and a world away from the tourist-thronged old town of Split, past retirees clambering out of cruise ships and stag parties stumbling into beachside bars, Ivan Sanader studied a smouldering hillside that stank of smoke.

The night before, he had fought a fire that charred the slope and threatened to engulf a roadside restaurant. Now, the commander of a mobile firefighter centre in Croatia was issuing orders to stop it flaring back up.

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Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida as category 3 storm

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Powerful cyclone slams into coast, bringing deadly storm surge to Sarasota, Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers

A weakening but still tremendously powerful Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday night as a category 3, pushing ahead of it a massive and potentially deadly wall of water from the Gulf of Mexico, as well as “catastrophic” winds likely to cause significant property damage.

The cyclone, described earlier in the day by Joe Biden as “the storm of the century”, made landfall near Sarasota, Florida, just after 8:30pm ET, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said. The storm was bringing deadly storm surge to much of Florida’s Gulf coast, including densely populated areas such as Tampa, St Petersburg, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

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Hurricanes like Helene twice as likely to happen due to global heating, data finds

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Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating

As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida, fueled by a record-hot Gulf of Mexico, a new analysis has shown how the Gulf’s heat that worsened last month’s Hurricane Helene was 200 to 500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating.

Helene, one of the deadliest storms in US history, gathered pace over the Gulf before crashing ashore with 140mph winds.

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China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years

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IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030

China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.

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Energy industry trade body chief to head UK’s climate watchdog

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Emma Pinchbeck will take over as chief executive of Climate Change Committee next month

The government’s official climate watchdog has appointed the head of the energy industry’s trade association to lead its work helping to drive the UK’s emissions to net zero by 2050.

Emma Pinchbeck, the head of Energy UK, will take up the role of chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) from early next month after four years at the helm of the trade association.

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