Category Archives: Climate science

Under water, in denial: is Europe drowning out the climate crisis?

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Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential

In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

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Media and political attacks on Australia’s emissions targets ‘straight out of the climate obstruction playbook’, expert says

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Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction

Political and media attacks on renewable energy and climate action in Australia in recent months have come “out of the climate obstruction playbook” that has been honed over decades around the world by fossil fuel interests.

Prof Christian Downie, an Australian researcher, says he has studied techniques used by business groups and lobbyists all over the world which are now being seen in Australia.

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Labor’s 2035 emissions target a ‘sliding doors’ moment for future generations

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Australia must lead other nations in committing to 1.5C pathway for safety, security, prosperity and the environment, experts say

Leading climate advocates have warned the Australian government’s decision on a 2035 emissions reduction will be a historic “sliding doors moment” for the country, with an international goal to keep global heating to 1.5C now hanging by a thread.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is expected to announce a target range on Thursday after a scheduled morning cabinet meeting before formally submitting it to the UN later this month.

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April storms that killed 24 in US made more severe by burning fossil fuels – study

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Study finds human-caused climate change made four-day rainfall across central Mississippi valley 40% more likely

The four-day historic storm that caused death and destruction across the central Mississippi valley in early April was made significantly more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels, rapid analysis by a coalition of leading climate scientists has found.

Record quantities of rain were dumped across eight southern and midwestern states between 3 and 6 April, causing widespread catastrophic flooding that killed at least 15 people, inundated crops, wrecked homes, swept away vehicles and caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of households.

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One Nation candidate poised to help Coalition in handshake deal has railed against climate science and Covid ‘little Hitlers’

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Exclusive: Stuart Bonds could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter thanks to a preference deal and ‘last minute’ change to how-to-vote cards

A One Nation candidate who could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter, thanks to a handshake preference deal, has called public health officials “little Hitlers” and promoted a conspiracy theory alleging the government has used the climate crisis to control every aspect of people’s lives.

Stuart Bonds told a livestreamed forum with rightwing activists last week that the federal government should not do anything to address climate change. He also claimed “a crime” was committed against Australians during the Covid pandemic, alleging they were used “as an experiment to sell pharmaceutical projects”.

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More than 80% of the world’s reefs hit by bleaching after worst global event on record

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An ashen pallor and an eerie stillness all that remains where there should fluttering fish and vibrant colours in the reefscape, one conservationist says

The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.

Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.

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Documents reveal Trump’s plan to gut funding for Nasa and climate science

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Critics say Nasa faces ‘extinction-level event’ with budget plan, with climate research funding also to be slashed

Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday.

The administration is planning to slash budgets at both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Noaa) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), according to internal budget documents, taking aim specifically at programs used to study impacts from the climate crisis.

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Methane emissions from Queensland mine may be gross underestimates, UN research finds

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Data collected by two planes suggests large open-cut coalmine in Bowen Basin is releasing methane at higher rates than official estimates

Emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane at a Queensland coalmine were likely between three and eight times higher than officially reported, according to UN-backed research that flew aircraft over the site.

Queensland’s open-cut coalmines are known to be a major source of methane and experts are worried that official figures could be a gross underestimation of actual emissions.

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‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

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Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil

The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.

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‘Rising star’: Europe made more electricity from solar than coal in 2024

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Report reveals solar power generated 11% of Europe’s electricity, surpassing coal at 10%

Europe made more electricity from sunshine than coal last year, a report has found, in what analysts called a “milestone” for the clean energy transition.

Solar panels generated 11% of the EU’s electricity in 2024, while coal-burning power plants generated 10%, according to data from climate thinktank Ember. The role of fossil gas fell for the fifth year in a row to cover 16% of the electricity mix.

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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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Australia’s coalmines and gasfields may be emitting twice as much methane as declared, report warns

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Superpower Institute says analysis of Queensland, NSW and Victorian sites shows need for independent reporting of greenhouse gas emissions

Australia’s coalmines and gasfields may be emitting twice as much methane as they currently declare, underscoring the need to introduce independent reporting of the potent greenhouse gas, an energy thinktank has warned.

The Superpower Institute’s Open Methane tool used satellites and ground-based verification to identify 20 “sites of concern” – all involving coal and gas operations – that are releasing “around double” the amount of methane reported.

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More than £494bn subsidies a year are harmful to the climate, says report

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ActionAid says ‘parasitic behaviour’ is fuelling the climate crisis and represents ‘corporate capture’ of public finance

More than $650bn (£494bn) a year in public subsidies goes to fossil fuel companies, intensive agriculture and other harmful industries in the developing world, new data has shown.

The subsidies entrench high greenhouse gas emissions and are fuelling the destruction of the natural world, according to a report from the charity ActionAid.

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Consumerism and the climate crisis threaten equitable future for humanity, report says

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The Earth Commission says hope lies in sustainable lifestyles, a radical transformation of global politics and fair distribution of resources

All of humanity could share a prosperous, equitable future but the space for development is rapidly shrinking under pressure from a wealthy minority of ultra-consumers, a groundbreaking study has shown.

Growing environmental degradation and climate instability have pushed the Earth beyond a series of safe planetary boundaries, say the authors from the Earth Commission, but it still remains possible to carve out a “safe and just space” that would enable everyone to thrive.

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Extreme heat poses ‘real risk’ to Spain’s mass tourism industry

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Public health adviser says higher temperatures caused by climate crisis pose danger for visitors not used to them

The climate emergency poses a “real risk” to Spain’s traditional mass tourist model as rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves hit the country’s most popular coastal destinations, a senior public health adviser has warned.

Héctor Tejero, the head of health and climate change at Spain’s health ministry, said the increasingly apparent physical impacts of the climate emergency had already led the ministry to begin talks with the British embassy on how best to educate “vulnerable” tourists about coping with the heat.

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‘It’s not beautiful, but you can still eat it’: climate crisis leads to more wonky vegetables in Netherlands

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Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record

When 31-year-old Dutch farmer Bastiaan Blok dug up his latest crop, the weather had taken a disastrous toll. His onions – 117,000 kilos of them – were the size of shallots.

“We had a very wet spring and a dry, warm summer, so the plants made very small roots,” said Blok, who farms 90 hectares in Swifterbant, in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. “Half of them were less than 40mm and normally at this size they aren’t even processed. We would have probably sold them for very little for biomass, or maybe to Poland for onion oil. It’s either far too wet and cold, or far too warm and dry, and there’s no normal growing period in between.”

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Sensor error means New Delhi heatwave record overstated by 3C

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Meteorologists found 52.9C reading to be false, though new record does appear to have been set

A record temperature registered this week for the Indian capital of 52.9C (127.22F) was too high by 3C, the Indian government has said.

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had investigated Wednesday’s reading by the weather station at Mungeshpur, a densely packed corner of New Delhi, “and found a 3C sensor error”, the earth sciences minister, Kiren Rijiju, said.

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Venezuela loses its last glacier as it shrinks down to an ice field

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Scientists reclassify Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, after it melted faster than expected

Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier after it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice field.

It is thought Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times.

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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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