Category Archives: Climate crisis

Rishi Sunak accused of hypocrisy after backing phase-out of fossil fuels at Cop28

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UK prime minister attacked for inconsistency after allowing more gas and oil exploration in the North Sea

Rishi Sunak has been accused of hypocrisy on the international stage after pushing for a phase-out of fossil fuels at the UN Cop28 climate summit in Dubai – weeks after backing more oil and gas exploration in the North Sea.

The prime minister’s lack of “consistency” over climate policy was ridiculed by several senior Conservatives, as well as the former US vice president Al Gore, while members of other international delegations said the UK’s incoherent approach meant it was no longer a global leader on climate issues.

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Kamala Harris addresses Cop28 amid mixed reaction to US climate pledges

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US vice-president, deputising for Joe Biden, tells summit that world faces a ‘pivotal moment’ in the climate crisis

The world is facing a “pivotal moment” in the climate crisis, Kamala Harris has told the Cop28 summit after the US vowed to phase out coal plants and slash methane emissions, but also came under attack for meagre assistance to developing countries and for its own booming oil and gas extraction industry.

The US vice-president, deputising for Joe Biden – who skipped the UN climate talks – said Biden’s administration had made the “largest climate investment in the history of our country, and some have said the world” via the Inflation Reduction Act.

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Cop28 live: UK and US among 22 countries to call for tripling of nuclear by 2050

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Hosts the UAE also signed the declaration, which drew a mixed reaction

For the first time at a Cop the UNFCCC, which organises the summits, has published the full list of participants in spreadsheet format, making them far easier to analyse.

Carbon Brief have looked at the provisional figures, and found that 84,101 people are registered to attend, 3,074 of whom are attending virtually.

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Copping out? Biden skips UN climate conference – podcast

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The UN’s Cop28 climate conference has kicked off in Dubai this week – but one notable absence will be the US president. Joe Biden pledged to make the fight against climate breakdown one of his top priorities when he took office, and news of his absence from this year’s gathering has frustrated activists.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to one such activist, Jerome Foster, who in 2021 became the youngest adviser to the White House when he was asked to sit on its environmental justice advisory council

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Sunak accused of retreating from global climate leadership at Cop28

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PM attracts cross-party criticism with claim that ‘climate politics is at breaking point’ during combative summit visit

Rishi Sunak has been accused of “shrinking and retreating” from global leadership as he used the Cop28 summit to claim that “climate politics is at breaking point” because of the costs of net zero.

While many other world leaders, including King Charles, spoke of the urgency of action on the climate, the prime minister used his brief appearance at the summit in Dubai to promote his approach to slowing the pace of net zero policies and reducing pressures on family finances.

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Belgian court orders 55% emissions cut from 1990 levels

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Court of appeal ruling means government has only until 2030 to reach target

A Belgian court has declared the country’s climate targets “clearly insufficient” and ordered the government to cut emissions faster.

In a powerful victory for climate campaigners, the Brussels court of appeal ordered Belgium to cut its planet-heating pollution by at least 55% from 1990 levels by 2030. By 2021, Belgium had cut its emissions by just 24%.

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Stage set for national cabinet clash over GST – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

The NSW Australian Paramedics Association will take part in a 12-hour strike today, from 7am to 7pm, despite the threat of legal action.

Members will still attend emergency “lights and sirens” jobs as part of an ongoing pay dispute.

We want to assure the public that emergencies will still be attended to, with our focus intensifying on life-threatening cases.

Our decision to limit responses to non-emergency jobs enhances our capacity to manage critical cases.

Facing potential legal repercussions and a substantial fine of up to $20,000 per day, our commitment remains firm.

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Matt Hancock ‘was not told about eat out to help out scheme until day it was announced’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Hancock is now deploying the defence previewed in the Observer on Sunday. (See 9.58am.)

He says from the middle of January the DHSC was “trying to effectively raise the alarm”. He says:

We were trying to wake up Whitehall to the scale of the problem and this wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be addressed only from the health department. Non-pharmaceutical interventions cannot be put in place by a health department. A health department can’t shut schools. It should have been grasped and led from the centre of government earlier. And you’ve seen evidence that repeatedly the department and I tried to make this happen.

And we were on occasions blocked, and at other times our concerns were not taken as seriously as they should have been until the very end of February.

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Industry super funds warn slow transition to net zero puts Australia at risk of losing ‘attractive’ investments

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A new report argues that $12bn a year on average between now and 2050 will be required to transition to renewable energy

Industry super funds have warned the Albanese government that Australia’s energy transition risks falling behind as big funds chase more compelling investment opportunities in the US, UK and Europe.

AustralianSuper, cbus, HostPlus, CareSuper, HESTA and UniSuper have co-authored a new report with Australian fund IFM Investors calling for more favourable investment conditions underwritten by taxpayers to unlock private capital for the domestic transition to net zero emissions.

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More than 20bn tonnes of Co2 could be emitted if Australian fossil fuel projects up for approval go ahead

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Exclusive: Climate groups say projected amount is 10 times greater than estimates of Australia’s remaining fair ‘carbon budget’ if global heating is to be limited to 1.5C

The Australian government will face decisions on whether to greenlight 30 fossil fuel developments, mostly to export coal or gas, that together could result in more than 20bn tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.

Climate groups have calculated the potential total climate pollution from fossil fuel developments currently submitted for environmental approval. Including emissions released both during production and when the fossil fuel was ultimately burned for energy – often in overseas power plants – they found the developments could lead to an additional 22bn tonnes of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.

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Climate crisis a ‘substantial risk’ to fight against malaria, says WHO

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New report says disease-carrying mosquitoes thrive in rising temperatures, leading to transmission in hitherto unaffected areas

The climate crisis poses a major threat to the fight against malaria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with evidence suggesting extreme weather events and rising temperatures have already led to spikes in cases.

Mosquitoes, the carriers of the disease, thrive in warm, damp and humid conditions, which are increasing with global heating.

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New push for debt relief to help developing world fund climate action

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Cop28 hears poorest nations spend at least 12 times as much to service debts than on tackling global heating

The fight against the climate emergency is being hampered by a debt crisis that involves the world’s poorest countries paying more than 12 times as much to their creditors as they are spending on measures to tackle the impact of global heating, a campaign group has warned.

As the Cop28 meeting opened in the United Arab Emirates, Development Finance International (DFI) said a new round of comprehensive and deep debt cancellation was needed to free up much-needed investment in climate emergency adaptation.

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Australia politics live: Albanese says Israel-Hamas war protest at Melbourne hotel ‘beyond contempt’

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Chalmers: ‘We are making some welcome progress in the fight against inflation’

Is Jim Chalmers confident that interest rates could fall from next year?

My job is to focus on this fight against inflation. And we saw overnight from the OECD, we saw from Deloitte Access Economics, we saw in the Bureau of Statistics data which came out yesterday, that we are making some welcome progress in the fight against inflation and that will determine the future directory trajectory of interest rates

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Time running out to make prosperous transition to net zero emissions, Australia warned

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Climate Change Authority tells Labor government rapid action is needed, including accelerating emissions cuts from oil and gas

Australia risks falling short of its 2030 climate target and time is running out for it to make a prosperous transition to net zero emissions on its own terms, the independent Climate Change Authority has warned.

The authority’s annual assessment of Australia’s progress on climate said the country still had time to take advantage of the opportunities a net zero world presented, but it risked the transition to a clean economy being “dictated to us by the actions of others around the world” the longer it delayed.

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Extending incentives for rooftop solar panels beyond 2030 and expanding them to include household batteries and private electric vehicle chargers

Accelerating emissions cuts from oil and gas by introducing international best practice measures to cut methane emissions and leaks, and requiring facilities to sequester all carbon dioxide pollution

Coordinating with state and territory governments to agree on timing for the retirement of fossil fuel generators

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The secret plan to ‘hook’ the developing world on oil – podcast

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As the Cop28 climate summit begins in Dubai today, a secret Saudi Arabian plan to get poorer countries ‘hooked on its harmful products’ has emerged. Damian Carrington reports

Delegates from every country in the world are meeting today at the beginning of the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates. The scale of the challenge ahead of them is immense: phasing out the fossil fuels that power the global economy before a planetary tipping point is reached.

As the Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, tells Michael Safi this week, that task has got even tougher. It has emerged that Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries. Critics say the plan is designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.

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Chris Bowen warns global heating will fuel political instability in annual climate statement

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Parliament to hear increased ‘fragility’ of energy networks ‘could be used by hostile actors’ amid existential national security risk to Pacific neighbours

The climate change minister, Chris Bowen, will declare runaway global heating remains a national security threat and predict that countries vulnerable to sea level rise will look to Australia to provide “mobility with dignity” as the climate crisis deepens.

Bowen will tell parliament on Thursday that extreme weather events caused by climate change will also place increased strain on Australia’s energy networks, warning “this fragility could be used by hostile actors”.

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‘A biodiversity catastrophe’: how the world could look in 2050 – unless we act now

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The climate crisis, invasive species, overexploitation of resources and pollution could break down crucial ecosystems. We asked experts to lay out the risks and offer some solutions

The continued destruction of nature across the planet will result in major shocks to food supplies and safe water, the disappearance of unique species and the loss of landscapes central to human culture and leisure by the middle of this century, experts have warned.

By 2050, if humanity does not follow through on commitments to tackle the five main drivers of nature loss critical natural systems could break down just as the human population is projected to peak.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s grand plan to ‘hook’ poor countries on oil

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Climate scientists say fossil fuel use needs to fall rapidly – but oil-rich kingdom is working to drive up demand

Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”.

Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.

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Climate crisis adds average £605 a year to UK household food bills, study finds

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Report quantifies UK food inflation caused by extreme weather reducing global crop yields since end of 2021

Food bills in the UK have risen by £605 a year for the average household because of the effects of climate breakdown, according to research.

Floods and droughts, which scientists have said were probably exacerbated by global heating, have reduced crop yields over the past two years, said the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a nonprofit organisation.

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Success of Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV raises fears for Dutch climate policies

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The party has a hostile stance on attempts to cut carbon emissions but got more votes than any other in general election

The shocking success of Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV party in Dutch elections has left climate activists fearful of a drastic shift to fossil fuels and a rollback of climate policies if it manages to form a government.

Best known abroad for its rhetoric against Muslims, the PVV, which came first in Wednesday’s election but may struggle to find coalition partners, has taken a hard line on policies to stop the planet getting hotter.

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