The climate activists claim to have targeted 4x4 owners in eight European and US cities
Guerrilla climate activists Tyre Extinguishers have claimed their “largest ever night of action against SUVs”, with 900 of the vehicles targeted around the world.
“Last night (the evening of Monday 28 November and early morning of Tuesday 29 November), citizens in eight countries deflated tyres on nearly 900 polluting SUVs,” the activist group said in a statement.
Continue reading...First global analysis follows discovery of toxic pollution particles in lungs and brains of foetuses
Almost a million stillbirths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to the first global study.
The research estimated that almost half of stillbirths could be linked to exposure to pollution particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), mostly produced from the burning of fossil fuels.
Continue reading...The censure motion against Scott Morrison over multiple ministries scandal will be debated in House of Representatives tomorrow. Follow the day’s news live
Bipartisanship cedes to brinkmanship in battle over integrity commission
Meanwhile, Mark Dreyfus is preparing to stare down the Liberals and the Greens over an amendment to the national anti-corruption commission legislation which Dreyfus says risks establishing the commission and the Liberals and Greens say will ensure it won’t be political.
Continue reading...National Highways has obtained an injunction to ‘prevent unlawful protests’ until November 2023
A high court injunction has been granted that would impose fresh penalties on Just Stop Oil activists for demonstrating on the country’s busiest motorway until November next year.
National Highways said it had secured the civil order to “prevent unlawful protests” on the M25, after a series of actions by the environmental group caused significant traffic disruption.
Continue reading...PM is stuck between two wings of party and at risk of Commons defeat on pro-renewables amendment
Rishi Sunak is scrambling to find a compromise on permitting onshore wind amid a growing backbench Conservative rebellion, though No 10 remains fearful of a backlash from MPs who oppose windfarms.
The U-turn on backing onshore wind projects would directly contradict a pledge by Sunak during his leadership campaign but Downing Street has sought to frame it as government policy.
Continue reading...A ‘certificate of origin’ scheme could counter concerns about renewables supply chains, says Clean Energy Council
The Australian clean energy industry has warned of growing evidence linking renewable energy supply chains to modern slavery, and urged companies and governments to act to eliminate it.
A report by the Clean Energy Council, representing renewable energy companies and solar installers, has called for more local renewable energy production and manufacturing and a “certificate of origin” scheme to counter concerns about slave labour in mineral extraction and manufacturing in China, Africa and South America.
About 2.6 million Uyghur and Kazakh people have been subjected to coercion, “re-education programs” and internment in the Xinjiang region of north-west China, which is the source of 40-45% of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon. A report by the United Nations office of the high commissioner for human rights three months ago found Xinjiang was home to “serious human rights violations”, and the US has listed polysilicon from China as a material likely to have been produced by child or forced labour.
On batteries, there were major issues with the mining of between 15% and 30% of the world’s cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Amnesty International found that children, some as young as seven, were working in artisanal cobalt mines, often for less than $2 a day. Mining conditions were reportedly hazardous, and workers often did not have adequate protective equipment and were exposed to toxic dust that contributed to hard metal lung disease.
On wind energy, there had been rapid growth in demand for balsa wood used in turbine blades that had reportedly led to workers in Ecuador’s Amazon region being subject to substandard labour conditions, including payment being made with alcohol or drugs. The demand for balsa has also reportedly increased deforestation, and affected the land rights of Indigenous people in Peru. Some balsa wood suppliers have more recently provided Forest Stewardship Council certifications, which verifies responsible forest management and fair wages and work environments.
Continue reading...Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target
The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.
Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.
Continue reading...Scientists trying to replicate 1964 study say results reveal alarming deterioration in river’s ecosystem
A survey of mussels has revealed an alarming deterioration in the River Thames ecosystem since the 1960s, according to a study.
Scientists attempting to replicate a 1964 survey of freshwater bivalves in a stretch of the Thames near Reading found striking results, as native mussel populations had crashed by almost 95%. One native species, the depressed river mussel, had vanished completely, and the remaining species were much smaller for their age, reflecting slower growth.
Continue reading...E.ON reports up to 15% drop as Grant Shapps writes to firms customers cutting back on energy use should not face direct debit rise
Britons have cut their gas and electricity use by more than 10% since October in the first evidence of the impact of the energy crisis on household habits, according to two of Britain’s biggest suppliers.
E.ON, Britain’s second-largest supplier, and the owner of Utility Warehouse have reported “double-digit” declines in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Nearly half of voters who switched to an independent candidate at 2022 election did so because of climate fears, researchers say
Concern about the climate crisis was the No 1 issue that prompted Australians to switch their vote to an independent candidate at this year’s federal election, according to in-depth social research.
It was the No 2 issue that led to people to swing to Labor, behind concern about the cost of living – including affordable housing.
Continue reading...Calls for construction on Museum of the 20th Century to be halted until energy efficiency issues addressed
A vast modern art museum under construction in Berlin has been castigated by conservation experts and architecture critics for its poor environmental credentials, as the energy crisis intensifies scrutiny of the efficiency of new buildings.
The Museum of the 20th Century, designed by the Swiss star architects Herzog and de Meuron, is intended to propel the German capital into the top tier of world cities for modern art, competing with New York’s Moma and London’s Tate Modern.
Continue reading...Growing list facing extinction and underresourcing of conservation means plans have not been updated
Hundreds of plans for the recovery of threatened species will reach their use-by date in the next six months as the government considers how to reform Australia’s flawed system of environmental protections.
Documents released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws detail how underresourcing, disagreement with state governments, and the growing list of species threatened with extinction have constrained the federal environment department’s ability to get on top of a backlog of conservation work.
Continue reading...Russian attacks cut off essential power to the stations last week, forcing all four of them into high-risk mitigation procedures
There are growing fears that Russia’s relentless targeting of Ukraine’s electricity grid will threaten the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants, in the wake of an unprecedented emergency shutdown on Wednesday.
Petro Kotin, the president of Ukraine’s nuclear power company, Energoatom, said that all safety mechanisms had worked as intended on Wednesday, but two generators were damaged in the process, delaying the restart of two reactors. Kotin said repeated shutdowns caused by more Russian missile attacks could cause extensive damage, with a potentially severe impact on Ukraine’s power supply and possibly on nuclear safety.
Continue reading...Tory MP becomes latest member of party to get behind push to drop moratorium imposed in 2014
The president of the Cop26 climate summit Alok Sharma has become the latest Conservative party MP to support lifting the ban on new onshore windfarms.
Sharma has joined his former boss Boris Johnson, who nominated him for a peerage, in backing an amendment to government legislation in an attempt to drop the moratorium on onshore wind.
Continue reading...Former prime minister says US and Europe will pay biggest share of loss and damage fund, but China must too
China must pay into a new fund for poor countries stricken by climate-driven disaster on the basis of its high greenhouse gas emissions and large economy, the former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said.
“America and Europe will have to provide most, but China will have to contribute more too,” he told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Tanya Plibersek could list the bird as endangered amid concerns about proposed rocket launch site
A tiny southern emu wren, which conservationists fear is under threat from rocket launches, could be listed as endangered within days.
Conservationists say planned rocket launches on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia pose an extinction-level threat to the wren, one of Australia’s smallest birds.
Continue reading...The world’s biggest single-building pig farm has opened in Hubei province, but critics say it will increase the risk of larger animal disease outbreaks
On the southern outskirts of Ezhou, a city in central China’s Hubei province, a giant apartment-style building overlooks the main road. But it is not for office workers or families. At 26 storeys it is by far the biggest single-building pig farm in the world, with a capacity to slaughter 1.2 million pigs a year.
This is China’s answer to its insatiable demand for pork, the most popular animal protein in the country.
Continue reading...Mammals were downgraded from endangered to threatened in 2017, even as pollution and habitat loss drive starvation
The deaths of almost 2,000 manatees in Florida’s coastal and inland waterways over the last two years has provoked an alliance of environmental groups to demand an urgent reclassification of the species to officially endangered.
The advocates, led by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, insist the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made a critical error in 2017 by prematurely downgrading the status of the giant aquatic mammals from endangered to merely threatened.
Continue reading...As part of an attempt to rid Stewart Island of the rodents, children as young as five have taken part in a rat catching competition, with remarkable results
In a tiny school on the southern-most tip of New Zealand, the children are lining up their kill.
Big brown rats with long tails, their stomachs caked in blood. Smaller rats, stiff from the refrigerator, tails in a tangle.
Continue reading...Conservationist says if world leaders do not go to the summit a strong deal to halt and reverse nature loss is at risk
Chris Packham is urging the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to attend a key nature summit to protect the planet for the sake of his great-grandchildren because we are “very close to the point of no return”.
The Cop15 biodiversity summit being held in Montreal from 7-19 December is the nature equivalent of the recent Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, with governments from all over the world expected to agree targets to halt the destruction of the natural world. But world leaders are not expected to attend the once-in-a-decade meeting where the next 10 years of targets will be agreed.
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