Category Archives: Environment

World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels, Christiana Figueres warns – and climate health impacts are ‘mother of all injustices’

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Exclusive: Former UN climate chief to co-chair Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality

Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”.

Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.

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Oil slick from bombed Iranian ship threatens protected wetland

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Shahid Bagheri leaking fuel towards Hara mangrove forest, home to migrating birds and endangered turtles

An oil slick from a stricken Iranian ship threatens to contaminate one of the Middle East’s most important wetlands, satellite image analysis suggests, making it one of a number of spills posing a risk to the livelihoods of coastal communities in the Gulf.

The Shahid Bagheri, a drone carrier, began leaking heavy fuel oil in Iranian territorial waters near the strait of Hormuz after it was hit by a US warplane in the first few days of the US-Israel attack on Iran.

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California county records sixth person bitten by rattlesnake in under a month

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Two fatalities reported in southern California so far, with warmer spring bringing reptiles out on trails earlier

A sixth person has been bitten by a rattlesnake in southern California’s Ventura county in just under a month, two-thirds of the number of people bitten in all of 2025.

Andrew Dowd, a Ventura county fire department spokesperson, said paramedics responded to a call on Sunday for a man who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. The victim said he had been bitten near California State University Channel Islands.

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Hatchings of two California bald eagle chicks delight vast livestream audience

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Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets emerged from eggs on Easter weekend in Big Bear Valley as watched by thousands online

Over Easter weekend, thousands of people tuned in to celebrate something spectacular unfolding 145 feet up a pine tree in southern California’s San Bernardino national forest – the hatchings of two bald eagle chicks.

Two eaglets were born to Jackie and Shadow, the southern California pair that have become avian celebrities thanks to the webcam that has livestreamed their activities since 2018.

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Using AI to speed up Australia’s environmental approvals risks ‘robodebt-style’ failures, scientists say

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Conservationists say move could push species closer to extinction and clearer environmental rules are needed instead

Conservationists and scientists have warned a mining lobby proposal to use artificial intelligence to speed up national environmental approvals could generate “robodebt-style” failures, putting threatened species at further risk.

The Minerals Council of Australia has asked the government to spend $13m to trial the use of AI to help companies prepare applications and help the federal government make decisions.

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German mayors call for night-time ban on robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs

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Leaders say automated mowers’ blades threaten nocturnal animals as studies highlight risks to wildlife

German mayors have called for a nationwide ban on night-time use of robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs and other small nocturnal animals from being killed or maimed in the dark.

Recent studies have highlighted the threat lawnmower blades pose to wildlife active between dusk and dawn, prompting growing calls for regulation. Hedgehogs also tend to curl into a ball when threatened rather than running away, making them harder for a robot mower’s sensors to detect.

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Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila could hit far north Queensland three weeks after Narelle tore through

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While path and strength of storm remain uncertain, BoM warns Cape York could again take direct hit if cyclone makes landfall

Another cyclone may hit the Queensland coast just over three weeks after the same area was smashed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

But a meteorologist warned forecasts predicting the path and strength of Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila remained uncertain, with the storm likely to make landfall over the weekend.

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‘I just legged it’: teenage shark bite victim recalls lucky escape while surfing in South Australia

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Oliver Tokic-Bensley, 16, says he had been in the water mere minutes when a shark bit his foot

A teenage surfer bitten by a shark at a South Australian beach has described how he “flicked it off” and “legged it back to shore”.

Oliver Tokic-Bensley, 16, was bitten on his foot while surfing on Good Friday near his family beach house at Middleton, 80km south of Adelaide.

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How Paris swapped cars for bikes – and transformed its streets

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Under Anne Hidalgo – mayor for 12 years until last week – the French capital added bike lanes, cut traffic and reclaimed public space, but not without resistance

When Corentin Roudaut moved to Paris 10 years ago, he was too scared to cycle. The IT developer had biked everywhere as a student in Rennes but felt overwhelmed by the bustling French capital. Cars were everywhere. Cyclists had almost no protection.

But once authorities carved out space for a segregated bike lane on Boulevard Voltaire near his home in the 11th arrondissement, Roudaut returned to the two-wheel commute and did not look back.

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Bilby boom: breeding trial to reintroduce species to Mallee Cliffs national park shows signs of success

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Fifty ‘founder’ bilbies were released in fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing first wild population there in a century

Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in the far south-west of New South Wales are showing signs of success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000, seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs national park.

Fifty “founder” bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century.

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New North Sea drilling would barely reduce UK gas imports at all, data shows

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Exclusive: research finds Jackdaw field would provide only about 2% of current demand, and Rosebank only 1%

Opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, research has shown.

The Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK’s current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources.

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Sydney councils fear new datacentres could cause blackouts, block housing and affect locals’ health

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Datacentres ‘directly competing’ with possible residential builds near public transport, one council tells NSW inquiry, amid growing concerns

Datacentre developments are crowding out opportunities for housing and job-rich industries across Sydney, a New South Wales inquiry has heard, with one local council reporting a rise in blackouts linked to the industry’s expansion.

Several Sydney councils, all facing an influx of datacentre developments, have raised concerns about the health, environmental and amenity impacts on their local communities in submissions to the state’s datacentre inquiry.

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EPA moves to designate microplastics and pharmaceuticals as contaminants in drinking water

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Proposal, a win for RFK Jr’s Maha movement, is a ‘first step’ toward tackling plastic pollution, advocates say

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed on Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities.

Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, said the agency was responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to health secretary Robert FKennedy Jr’s Maha movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.

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Asia ramps up use of dirty fuels to cover energy shortfall triggered by Iran war

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South Korea will delay the shutdown of coal-fired plants, while the Philippines also plans to boost the output of its coal-burning plants

Governments across Asia are ramping up their use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, as they try to cover huge energy shortfalls triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran.

The move has triggered warnings from climate experts who point to coal’s devastating environmental impact, and say the energy crisis should be a wake up call for governments to invest in renewables, which can offer a more stable supply that is not exposed to price shocks.

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‘God squad’ waives endangered species law to allow US drilling in Gulf of Mexico

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Critics say exemption for fossil fuels exploits White House’s ‘self-made gas crisis’, and could doom the rare Rice’s whale

A US government panel on Tuesday exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a move which critics say could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life.

The Endangered Species Committee – which had not convened in more than three decades – voted to approve the request for the ESA exemption at the request of the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

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Deepwater discoveries: scientists find more than 110 new fish and invertebrate species in the Coral Sea

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Brittlestars, sea anemones and a catshark among new-to-science species collected during expedition off the Queensland coast

Marine scientists have discovered more than 110 new fish and invertebrate species in the Coral Sea – a figure they believe could exceed 200 as more are identified.

The species were found in waters between 200 metres and 3km deep in the Coral Sea marine park, Australia’s largest marine protected area, which spans nearly 1m sq km to the east of the Great Barrier Reef.

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Rubbish and recycling in England: what’s changing and why it matters

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Nationwide reforms aim to standardise collections and expand food waste recycling to tackle stagnating rates

Recycling rules across England have long been inconsistent – but that will change from Tuesday when the government’s Simpler Recycling legislation comes into effect.

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Vanuatu Indigenous leaders raise concerns over plans to build resort for cruise tourists

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Exclusive: Environmental impact assessments are ‘incomplete’, say leaders, and private beach club could harm fragile ecosystems

Indigenous community leaders in Vanuatu have raised concerns over plans by the cruise operator Royal Caribbean to build a private beach club on the island of Lelepa, arguing environmental impact assessments by the company are “incomplete” and “misleading”.

The community leaders outlined the issues in a letter sent to Royal Caribbean on 26 February, which has been seen by the Guardian. The leaders also said the development could harm fragile ecosystems and a nearby Unesco world heritage site.

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Scientists film whale giving birth while other whales work together to help her

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Female named Rounder surrounded by family members when about to give birth to her second calf

Scientists have managed to film a sperm whale giving birth while other female whales worked together to support the mother and her newborn.

A team from Project Ceti, an international effort seeking to understand how whales communicate, was in a boat near a pod of 11 whales off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica on 8 July 2023.

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Beavers ‘breathe new life’ into Dorset as dams built and biodiversity returns

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National Trust says one year after reintroduction they are enriching habitats and may be having kits this summer

They were released this time last year with fanfare, much hope and also, perhaps, a little trepidation.

Twelve months on, there have been ups and downs for the first beavers to be (officially) reintroduced into the wild in England since the semiaquatic mammals were hunted to extinction 400 years ago.

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