Category Archives: Environment

Police urge drivers to stay off flooded roads after NSW man dies in submerged car

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Death of 46-year-old south of Bathurst comes as New South Wales and Victoria brace for heavy rain and severe weather

Police have urged motorists not to drive into flooded roads after the body of a missing man was found in his submerged vehicle in New South Wales’ central west.

The death of the 46-year-old comes as much of NSW braces for further deluges, with more than 100 flood warnings in place.

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British Museum urged to drop BP sponsor deal for Egypt exhibition

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Brian Eno, Ahdaf Soueif and Miriam Margolyes sign open letter about exhibition opening shortly before Cop27

Campaigners including the musician Brian Eno, the author Ahdaf Soueif and the actor Miriam Margolyes have criticised BP’s sponsorship of an exhibition of Egyptian artefacts at the British Museum.

The exhibition opens shortly before the critical Cop27 climate summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh this November.

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Man shot dead by police in Brisbane – as it happened

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Queensland police say officers had been called to Edmonstone Street in South Brisbane around 3pm. This blog is now closed

Treasurer says surging electricity costs will make inflation ‘hang around longer’

We brought you the grim news on the blog yesterday that the head of Alinta energy has predicated a 35% increase to retail electricity bills next year, as energy providers juggle phasing out fossil fuels alongside investment in renewables.

I think one of the reasons this inflation will hang around longer than we want it to is because there are expectations around these electricity price rises being more problematic for longer.

You’ve said the government would put the economy above politics, can you really say that’s what you doing if you leave the stage-three tax cuts in place as they are?

I can say that, and I think what people will see in the budget in two weeks’ time is some difficult decisions in difficult times.

Our job is to make sure that our budgets are perfectly calibrated to the economic conditions as we confront them.

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UK’s lost leadership role hurts Somalia’s fight against famine, says drought envoy

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Britain is no longer the key humanitarian player and ‘great ally’ it once was, says envoy trying to get support for Somalia’s drought

The UK has lost its leadership role in the world and is letting down its allies, a senior official in the Somali government has said.

Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response, said Britain used to be second only to the US as a key player in international forums and advocacy, but has since slipped, saying that countries such as Somalia were being left without support to face “the new climate reality”.

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Venezuela floods kill 25 after month’s worth of rain falls in eight hours

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At least 52 missing as military and rescue personnel searched for survivors

At least 25 people died and 52 were missing after five small rivers in central Venezuela flooded due to heavy rains, the government said.

The downpour on Saturday night swept large tree trunks and debris from surrounding mountains into the town of Tejerias, 67km south-west of the capital, Caracas, damaging businesses and farmland, according to the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez.

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NSW weather: rain subsides but heavy falls expected midweek

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Dozens of rivers still flooding and evacuation orders in place across state as reprieve from rain set to be short-lived

Rain has eased over much of New South Wales but dozens of rivers are still flooding and evacuation orders are in place as authorities forecast another rain system to arrive midweek.

People across the state were forced to flee their homes over the weekend amid rising flood waters and thousands of others are poised to leave if ordered as dams spill and river peaks move downstream.

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Chicken farms may explain decline of the River Wye, tests suggest

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Citizen scientists find high phosphorous levels in the soil could be polluting the river in Herefordshire

Campaigners have revealed the results of farmland testing which provides new evidence of the potential link between intensive poultry units and the decline of the River Wye.

Citizen scientists sampled farmland along public footpaths near a tributary to the river in Herefordshire. They discovered the soil with the highest levels of phosphorus, which can blight a river, were close to intensive poultry units.

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Extinction Rebellion protesters glue hands to prized Picasso – as it happened

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Dutton on his answer to filling the gap should stage-three tax cuts go through

Dutton:

If you look at even post lockdowns on a month by month basis, you can see months where we’ve gone back into surplus, so the settings we have in government, our instinct as Liberals, as a Coalition when it comes to budget management are vindicated.

When you look at where we are with a 50-year low unemployment, when you look at the strength of the underlying indicators here in Australia, that is a very significant contrast to where the UK or US budget is, and this government inherited a very strong position after nine years of Coalition management.

David, we went to the last election with a promise and I’m not in the business of breaking promises. The prime minister can contemplate it. He looked the Australian public in the eye and it seems he wasn’t so genuine and that he was prepared to make that statement.

I want to see the prime minister honour his commitment and not lie to the Australian people.

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Rescuers pull people from cars stuck in flood water as more NSW residents told to evacuate

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NSW SES commissioner Carlene York says it is ‘very dangerous out there’ and the rivers are still rising

Communities across large parts of New South Wales were on flood alert on Sunday afternoon, with a saturated landscape and swollen rivers in line for a further drenching on Wednesday.

By 1pm on Sunday, the NSW State Emergency Service had received more than 340 requests for help and carried out 28 flood rescues over the previous 24 hours – many were rescued from vehicles as they tried to drive through flood water.

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North American gray whale counts dwindling for the last two years

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An assessment released Friday shows the population is down 38% from its peak in 2015 and 2016

US researchers say the number of gray whales off western North America has continued to dwindle during the last two years, a decline that resembles previous population swings over the past several decades but is still generating worry.

According to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries assessment released Friday, the most recent count put the population at 16,650 whales – down 38% from its peak during the 2015-16 period. The whales also produced the fewest calves since scientists began counting the births in 1994.

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Farmed fish feel pain, stress and anxiety and must be killed humanely, global regulator accepts

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Aquaculture Stewardship Council’s new standards put pressure on the UK to extend its animal welfare laws to fisheries

One of the world’s leading organisations for farmed seafood is to introduce new welfare rules after accepting fish can feel “pain, stress and anxiety”.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), which oversees a global certification scheme for farmed fish, is consulting on new draft welfare standards, including more humane slaughter practices. The ASC provides certification labelling for British supermarket fish, from sea bass to smoked salmon.

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Phoenix could see deadliest year for heat deaths after sweltering summer

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With 22 days hitting 110F or higher, suspected heat deaths in the Arizona capital topped 450

Extreme heat contributed to as many as 450 deaths in the Phoenix area this summer, in what could be the deadliest year on record for the desert city in Arizona.

The medical examiner for Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, has so far confirmed 284 heat-related deaths, while investigations into 169 more suspected heat fatalities are ongoing. The highest number of deaths – and emergency hospital visits – coincided with the hottest days and nights.

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UN body reaches long-term aviation climate goal of net zero by 2050

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Decision described as a compromise by several European countries who wanted a more ambitious target

A United Nations body has agreed to a long-term aspirational goal for aviation of net-zero emissions by 2050, despite challenges from China and Russia, as countries aligned overwhelmingly with airlines amid pressure to curb pollution from flights.

Nevertheless, environmentalists criticised the non-binding nature of the agreement as toothless.

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Trouser snakes: US man accused of smuggling three reptiles in his pants

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New Yorker accused of hiding large Burmese pythons in trousers while crossing from Canada in July could face 20-year sentence

A New York City man faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly attempting to smuggle three large snakes across the US-Canada border – in his pants.

Queens resident Calvin Bautista, 36, is accused of hiding three Burmese pythons while on a bus crossing into the US at the Champlain port of entry in New York state on 15 July 2018, the Associated Press reported.

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Amazon loses London-sized area of rainforest in a month with Bolsonaro’s reign under threat

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Large area destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before possible change of president

Amazon deforestation has soared ahead of Brazil’s environmentally vital presidential election, with an area almost the size of Greater London lost last month alone.

Government satellites show a 1,455-sq km area of rainforest was destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before a possible change of president could bring Jair Bolsonaro’s era of destruction to an end.

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10,000 litres a day for each pitch: Qatar World Cup’s huge impact on Gulf waters

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Reliance on desalination comes with a big environmental cost for the region’s marine environment

As the World Cup approaches, Qatar is going to need at least 10,000 litres of water every day for each of its stadium pitches. Based in a region with virtually no access to fresh water, it is going to rely on desalination – the practice of debrining saltwater so it is drinkable.

It seems like an elegant solution – but the problem is that desalination, which is projected to boom by 37% across the Gulf region in the next five years, has huge environmental costs, in terms of the fossils fuels used to carry out the process, and the marine environment. But without it, how can the arid region possibly quench its thirst?

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Weather tracker: how record monsoon rain devastated Pakistan

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A heatwave that began in March led to the country receiving almost triple its average rainfall from June to August

Traditionally, the Asian monsoon is a time to celebrate. But after devastating floods in Pakistan, people in the country may feel differently. At their greatest extent in September, floods covered one-third of Pakistan’s surface. About 15% of the population have been displaced or otherwise affected, and an estimated 1,700 have died.

This year’s monsoon was the wettest on record. The numbers are mind-boggling. Between June and August, Pakistan received almost triple its average rainfall. The province of Sindh received more than eight times the usual amount. However, the situation is far more complicated than just extreme downpours.

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African countries urge rich nations to honour $100bn climate finance pledge

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Ministers rebuke ‘shameful’ failure to meet funding promises for poorer countries to cope with climate crisis ahead of Cop27 summit


Ministers and high-ranking officials of African nations have urged rich countries to do more to combat the climate crisis, and called the failure to meet a funding promise from 2009 “shameful”.

At a conference in Giza, Egypt, on Wednesday in the run-up to next month’s UN climate summit, Wael Aboulmagd, Egypt’s special representative for Cop27, attacked wealthier nations for not honouring an agreement to provide $100bn (£87.5bn) a year to developing countries by 2020.

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‘I have a voice’: African activists struggle to attend UN climate talks in Egypt

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Young campaigners from the continent most affected by the climate crisis face financial and accreditation difficulties for Cop27

African climate activists from some of the countries most affected by global heating say they are struggling to get access to the UN climate talks in Egypt in November.

Cop27, which has been termed “the African Cop”, threatens to take place without African activists advocating for communities devastated by drought, floods and fossil fuel projects in the negotiations when life-or-death decisions about climate finance will be made.

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Pakistani PM says he should not have to beg for help after catastrophic floods

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Shehbaz Sharif says he wants ‘climate justice’ from rich polluting countries after monsoons put a third of his country under water

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, has said Pakistan should not be forced to go out with a “begging bowl” to rich polluting nations after the floods that have devastated the country and said he would be seeking “climate justice” from the international community.

Speaking from his home in Lahore, Sharif warned that Pakistan is facing an unprecedented crisis of health, food security and internal displacement after the “apocalyptic” monsoons which put a third of Pakistan’s regions under water. Some areas were hit by 1.7m of rainfall, the highest on record.

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