Category Archives: Environment

Chinese official makes rare admission of failings over deadly Beijing floods

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Local Communist party secretary says there were ‘gaps’ in city’s readiness for extreme weather after at least 40 killed

A Beijing city official has issued a rare public acknowledgment of official failings in the authorities’ response to the severe flooding that hit China’s capital this week.

Yu Weiguo, a Communist party secretary for Miyun, the northern district worst affected by this week’s extreme weather, said in a press conference on Thursday that there were “gaps” in the city’s readiness for the deadly floods.

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Fears for South Australia’s annual cuttlefish gathering amid deadly algal bloom

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Breeding event known as Cuttlefest takes place in waters off Point Lowly but this year scientists warn the effect of toxic algae could be ‘catastrophic’

As thousands of giant cuttlefish gather in South Australia’s Spencer Gulf, scientists are investigating emergency actions amid fears the state’s toxic algal bloom could be catastrophic for the globally unique natural phenomenon.

The spectacular annual cephalopod meet-up takes place in a kaleidoscope of colour off the coast of Whyalla from late May to August, attracting thousands of tourists from Australia and overseas.

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Countries failing to act on UN climate pledge to triple renewables, thinktank finds

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Fossil fuel reliance likely to continue and Cop28 target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C will be missed

Most global governments have failed to act on the 2023 UN pledge to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, according to climate analysts.

The failure to act means that on current forecasts the world will fall far short of its clean energy goals, leading to a continued reliance on fossil fuels that is incompatible with the target of limiting global heating to below 1.5C.

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UN holds emergency talks over sky-high accommodation costs at Cop30 in Brazil

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Concerns poorer countries could be priced out of negotiations in Belém as room rates soar amid shortage

The UN climate bureau has held an urgent meeting about concerns that sky-high rates for accommodation at this year’s Cop30 summit in Brazil could price poorer countries out of the negotiations.

Brazil is preparing to host Cop30 this November in the rainforest city of Belém, where representatives of nearly every government in the world will gather to negotiate their joint efforts to curb the climate crisis.

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Council recognises right of River Test to flow unimpeded and unpolluted

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Test is one of only about 200 chalk streams in the world and councillors says biodiversity in and around it has declined

The right of a famous chalk stream, the Test in Hampshire, to flow freely and unpolluted has been officially recognised by politicians.

Councillors on Test Valley borough council voted unanimously to acknowledge “the intrinsic rights” of the rivers within its boundaries including the Test, which is renowned for its trout and fly fishing.

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Elon Musk is turning US liberals off not just Tesla but electric vehicles in general

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Disgust at the CEO’s rightwing activism is casting a pall but conservatives are no more likely to buy EVs

US liberals have become so disgusted with Tesla since Elon Musk’s rightward turn that they are now not only far less likely to purchase the car brand but also less willing to buy any type of electric car, new research has found.

The popularity of Tesla among liberal-minded Americans has plummeted since Musk, Tesla’s chief executive and the world’s richest person, allied himself with Donald Trump and helped propel the president to election victory last year.

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Experts baffled as rarely seen beaked whales involved in series of strandings

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Incidents across northern Europe on 26 and 27 July have left scientists trying to understand why so many of the deep-diving whales have appeared

A series of strandings of one of the world’s deepest dwelling and most rarely seen types of whale in the last few days has left experts baffled over why they might have appeared in such numbers.

Beaked whales are used to deep ocean waters and are so rarely seen that some species have only ever been identified through dead specimens. But on 26 and 27 July there were reports from western Ireland, Orkney in Scotland and the Netherlands of these whales being stranded, raising concerns that human actions could be implicated in the animals’ deaths.

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Gorilla habitats and pristine forest at risk as DRC opens half of country to oil and gas drilling bids

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Government launches licensing round for 52 fossil fuel blocks, potentially undermining a flagship conservation initiative and affecting an estimated 39 million people

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is opening crucial gorilla habitats and pristine forests to bids for oil and gas drilling, with plans to carve up more than half the country into fossil fuel blocks.

The blocks opened for auction cover 124m hectares (306m acres) of land and inland waters described by experts as the “world’s worst place to prospect for oil” because they hold vast amounts of carbon and are home to some of the planet’s most precious wildlife habitats, including endangered lowland gorillas and bonobo.

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Weather tracker: Cooldown in sight for south-east Europe after scorching heatwave

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Refreshing northerly airmass to bring abrupt end to extreme heat, offering respite for residents and firefighters

After enduring a relentless stretch of searing temperatures, relief is finally in sight for south-east Europe. The Balkans, which have been scorched by a brutal heatwave over recent weeks, have seen daily maximum temperatures soar, culminating in a peak on Saturday with widespread temperatures of 40C (104F) and above across Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria and neighbouring regions.

Turkey also suffered, with a scorching 50.5C (122.9F) recorded in Silopi on Friday, the country’s all-time highest maximum temperature. Now these places are set to experience a dramatic cooldown as a refreshing northerly airmass is moving in, bringing an abrupt end to the extreme heat and offering much-needed respite.

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Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires

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Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey

Thousands of people in Greece and Turkey have been forced to evacuate homes as firefighters in the countries battled to contain wildfires fanned by strong winds and searing heat.

As temperatures in south-eastern Europe exceeded 40C for a seventh straight day, the Greek prime minister praised rescue workers for waging “a titanic battle” to bring blazes under control.

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Thousands of tons of invasive seaweed ‘overwhelming’ Spanish beaches

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Alga from south-east Asia is major threat to biodiversity, say experts as they warn of environmental catastrophe

Thousands of tonnes of an aggressive invasive seaweed from south-east Asia are piling up on the beaches of the strait of Gibraltar and Spain’s southern coast in what local environmentalists say is a major threat to the region’s biodiversity.

Since May, the local authority in Cádiz has removed 1,200 tonnes of the alga Rugulopteryx okamurae from La Caleta, the city’s most popular beach, including 78 tonnes in a single day.

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Water chiefs’ pay rises to average of £1.1m despite ban on bonuses and outrage over pollution

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Total remuneration at companies in England and Wales – many of them under scrutiny for sewage discharge – was £15m in 2024-25

The pay of water company chief executives in England and Wales rose by 5% in the last financial year to an average of £1.1m, despite a ban on bonuses for several companies and widespread outrage over the sector’s poor performance.

Total pay reported by water companies reached £15m in 2024-25, up 5% on £13.8m the previous year, according to Guardian analysis of 14 companies’ annual reports.

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‘The sorest my legs have ever been’: hordes to descend on Hackney for litter-picking world cup

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The public-spirited sport of spogomi is catching on across Britain, which boasts its world champion team

Armed with gloves, metal tongs and plastic rubbish sacks, hordes of determined litter-pickers will descend on Hackney Marshes in east London this weekend.

Spogomi, a Japanese litter-picking sport, has come to the UK. Invented in 2008, it was intended as a competition to encourage people to clean up public spaces. It is now played in schools across the country as people gamify collecting rubbish.

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Tesla’s European sales slump as Musk warns of ‘rough quarters’ ahead

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Electric carmaker struggles to emerge from sales rut on continent despite updating its bestselling Model Y

Tesla sales in Europe have collapsed by one-third this year, data shows, after Elon Musk warned the electric carmaker faced “a few rough quarters” ahead.

According to the figures published on Thursday by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), sales of Tesla vehicles in Europe slumped by 33% to 110,000 in the first half of 2025, compared with 165,000 in the first half of 2024.

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Australia warned it could face legal action over ‘wrongful’ fossil fuel actions after landmark climate ruling from world’s top court

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Vanuatu climate change minister says ICJ opinion gives Pacific island nations ‘much greater leverage’ in dealing with partners such as Australia

Australia could face international legal action over its fossil fuel production and failure to rapidly cut emissions, Vanuatu’s climate minister says, after a potentially watershed declaration by the world’s top court.

An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion published in The Hague on Wednesday found countries had a legal obligation to take measures to prevent climate change and aim to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, and that high-emitting countries that failed to act could be liable to pay restitution to low-emitting countries.

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Neolithic long cairn in Yorkshire given extra protection after walkers remove stones

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Dudderhouse Hill in dales is thought to be one of first structures in UK to be communally constructed by humans

A rare and remarkable 5,000-year-old monument that is an example of one of the earliest visible structures in England is to receive extra protection because walkers, sometimes innocently, have been removing and moving stones.

The Dudderhouse Hill long cairn in the Yorkshire Dales has been granted “scheduled monument” status by the government, making it a site of national importance with greater legal protection.

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Clearing Gaza rubble could yield 90,000 tonnes of planet-heating emissions

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Processing debris from Israel’s destruction of homes, schools and hospitals could take four decades

Millions of tonnes of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza could generate more than 90,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – and take as long as four decades to remove and process, a study has found.

Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza generated at least 39m tonnes of concrete debris between October 2023 and December 2024, which will require at least 2.1m dump trucks driving 18m miles (29.5m km) to transport to disposal sites, researchers said.

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Large rise in abuse claims at mines that may be vital to EU’s energy transition, report says

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Researchers find 270 allegations at mineral projects across 13 countries in Europe and central Asia last year

Mines on the EU’s periphery that could be critical to its energy transition have recorded a large rise in allegations of abuse ranging from workplace deaths to soil pollution, a report has found, with a threefold increase in 2024 from the average of the five previous years.

The nonprofit Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) found 270 allegations of environmental and human rights abuses in transition mineral projects across 13 countries in Europe and central Asia last year, up from 92 the year before.

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China starts building world’s biggest hydropower dam

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1.2tn yuan project has broken ground in Tibet, premier says, despite fears of downstream nations India and Bangladesh

Construction of the world’s biggest hydropower megadam has begun, China’s premier has said, calling it the “project of the century”.

The huge structure is being built on the Yarlung Tsangpo river, in Tibetan territory.

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What a croc: the day a reptile was reportedly seen in Noosa … or was it?

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Claimed sighting 300km south of typical crocodile territory started as a Facebook post before doing the rounds of breakfast TV

It started as a Facebook post on a community noticeboard by a man with a designer dog as his profile picture and just a few friends – but within 24 hours it was doing the rounds of breakfast TV and online news platforms.

The question was: had Ross Buckley really seen a 3.5-metre crocodile while on his “usual 6:30am stroll” down the dog beach at the mouth of the Noosa River? Was Buckley even real?

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