Category Archives: Environment

Let the UK continue to lead the world in global development | Letter

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Whatever the outcome of this general election, leaders should rise to the ambition of our own and global commitments, write representatives of 49 organisations

The UK has a well-earned reputation for being a key player on the global stage – respected for our record on international development, climate change, and humanitarian aid.

By 2020, this country will have helped vaccinate 76 million children, saving 1.4 million lives from preventable diseases. The UK has already helped 57 million people to cope with the effects of climate change over the last eight years and is on track to reach 60 million people with clean water by 2020. About 32 million people have been supported with humanitarian assistance in the face of conflict and disasters, including at least 10 million women and girls.

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Greta Thunberg arrives in Lisbon after three-week voyage from US

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Climate activist heading to COP25 in Madrid after crossing Atlantic on family’s yacht

The climate activist Greta Thunberg has arrived in Lisbon after a three-week catamaran voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from the US.

The Swedish teenager now plans to head to Spain to attend the UN climate conference in Madrid.

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Climate emergency: Lagarde says ECB must step up action

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Bank president indicates she will move bank beyond traditional remit of controlling inflation

Christine Lagarde has said the European Central Bank should do more to help tackle the climate emergency, as she came under pressure from MEPs to step up action against global heating.

In a strong hint that as president she would move the ECB beyond its traditional remit of controlling inflation, Lagarde said the bank would incorporate the climate threat into both its economic forecasts and in its capacity as watchdog of the financial system.

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Mosquitoes bring ‘mystery illness’ to the mountain villages of Nepal

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Rising temperatures linked to outbreaks of dengue fever high in the Kathmandu Valley, experts say

•Global heating behind record number of cases of the disease

Lilawati Awasthi is used to the risks that come from living in a remote mountainous district in the far west of Nepal. Floods, landslides and treacherous roads are a part of daily life. But this year she faced a new hazard: mosquitoes carrying a mystery illness.

When she began to feel sick in September she was not overly concerned at first. “I thought it was a simple fever, but it wouldn’t go away,” says the 50-year-old. “We went to the hospital and it turned out I was suffering from dengue.”

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Revealed: ‘monumental’ NSW bushfires have burnt 20% of Blue Mountains world heritage area

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More than 10% of forest in NSW national parks destroyed by fire this season, with the damage to Gondwana rainforest a ‘global tragedy’

More than 10% of the area covered by New South Wales national parks has been burned in this season’s bushfires, including 20% of the Blue Mountains world heritage area, state government data obtained by Guardian Australia has revealed.

The amount of bushland destroyed within NSW national parks dwarfs that of the entire previous fire season, when 80,000 hectares were lost.

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Boris Johnson urged to challenge Trump on climate denial

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350 experts call on PM to address president’s ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’ claims

Boris Johnson is being urged by 350 leading climate researchers to robustly challenge Donald Trump on his “dangerous” and “irresponsible” denial of the risks of climate change during the US president’s visit to the UK this week.

Putting the prime minister under more pressure over his stance on global heating, leading academics involved in climate research said he must try to persuade Trump to take strong domestic and international action.

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French floods: five dead after three rescue workers killed in helicopter crash

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Three emergency workers killed in Marseille while two men died in the French Riviera

Three emergency workers were killed in a helicopter crash near Marseille while on a rescue mission in southern France where floods have left two dead, officials have said.

Their EC145 helicopter lost radio and radar contact while on a rescue and reconnaissance flight in the Var region on Sunday night.

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COP25: Island states want ‘decisive’ climate action to prevent inundation

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The impact of rising seas prompts plea ahead of the UN climate change conference that begins on Monday in Madrid

The countries most at risk of deluge from climate chaos have issued an impassioned plea to the industrialised world ahead of crucial negotiations on the Paris agreement that start on Monday in Madrid.

“We see [these talks] as the last opportunity to take decisive action,” Janine Felson, deputy chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) told the Guardian.

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New Zealand’s Whanganui River – in pictures

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Granted personhood in 2017 by the New Zealand parliament, the Whanganui is the first river in the world to be recognised as an indivisible and living being. But it still faces challenges from farming, forestry and development – and despite its beauty, the data suggests much needs to be done to nurse it back to full health

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Eight-foot whale found washed up on Thames shore

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The minke whale was discovered on Friday by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge

An eight-foot whale washed up on the shore of the Thames yesterday, where it was found by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge.

The minke whale was found on Friday evening at about 10pm by a Port of London Authority boat, but it is not yet known how it got there or why it died.

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Brazil’s president claims DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires

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Jair Bolsonaro falsely accuses actor of funding deliberate destruction of rainforest

Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.

Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched.”

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Daimler to axe at least 10,000 jobs worldwide

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Mercedes-Benz owner bids to slash €1bn from wage bill as industry switches towards electric vehicles

Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler has announced plans to cut at least 10,000 jobs worldwide in the latest sign of stress in the German automotive industry as it invests billions in electric cars.

Daimler, which also makes lorries, vans and buses, said in a statement on Friday it planned to cut “thousands of jobs” by the end of 2022, but later made it clear the toll would be higher.

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Proposed EU-wide ‘climate law’ would set net-zero carbon target by 2050

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Plan is part of ‘green new deal’ but campaigners say it is not enough to tackle climate crisis

The first EU-wide “climate law” would enshrine a legally binding target of reaching net-zero carbon by 2050, and Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions would be halved by 2030, under a set of proposals being discussed by the incoming European commission.

Cars would be subject to new air pollution standards, following the disastrous cheating that allowed diesel pollutants to be masked, and all vehicles may be brought within the EU’s carbon emissions trading scheme, which would affect drivers across the bloc. Three quarters of road transport would have to be moved to rail and inland waterways, and pricing would have to be adjusted to reflect the carbon output of different modes of transport, which is likely to prove controversial.

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Healthy coral sounds lure fish back to abandoned reefs, study finds

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With global heating damaging corals worldwide, experts find potential tool in ‘acoustic enrichment’ to recolonise reefs

Playing sounds of a healthy coral reef can attract fish back to reefs that have become degraded and abandoned, researchers have found.

Global heating together with factors such as pollution are causing widespread damage to coral and harming delicate reef ecosystems.

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‘Our house is on fire’: EU parliament declares climate emergency

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Bloc warned against making symbolic gestures not backed up by concrete action

The European parliament has declared a global “climate and environmental emergency” as it urged all EU countries to commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The vote came as scientists warned that the world may have already crossed a series of climate tipping points, resulting in “a state of planetary emergency”.

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Climate emergency: world ‘may have crossed tipping points’

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Warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events

The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.

Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.

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Fishing nations to lower catch limits for Atlantic bigeye tuna

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Plan aims to allow tuna population to recover from overfishing, but conservationists say endangered mako shark has been overlooked

Conservationists welcomed “long overdue” catch limits set this week for bigeye tuna and other Atlantic species, but criticised weak measures to rebuild endangered mako shark populations.

The International Commission for the Conservations of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – responsible for the management of tuna and tuna-like species and bycatch including sharks and rays – set new catch limits for bigeye tuna at a meeting in Palma, Mallorca, this week. It also agreed to reduce juvenile fish mortality by limiting certain fishing practices.

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Police raid office of Brazil NGO linked to brigade that helped battle Amazon fires

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Raid and arrests of four volunteer firefighters were a politically-motivated attack, indigenous associations and campaigners say

The headquarters of an award-winning Brazilian NGO which works with remote communities in the Amazon has been raided by police, who also arrested four volunteer firefighters and accused them of starting wildfires to raise international funding.

At dawn on Tuesday, heavily armed police raided the offices of the Health and Happiness Project, (known by its Portuguese initials as PSA) in Alter do Chão in the Amazon state of Pará, seizing computers and documents.

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