US bank becomes the first to establish a no-go zone in the oil and gas sector
Goldman Sachs has ruled out future financing of oil drilling or exploration in the Arctic and said it would not invest in new thermal coal mines anywhere in the world.
The new environmental policy, which was released by the US bank on Sunday, was praised by environmentalists, though many warned that it was only a first step.
Continue reading...Partial agreement at COP25 that countries must be more ambitious to fulfil Paris goals
Climate talks in Madrid have ended with a partial agreement to ask countries to come up with more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris accord.
Few countries came to this year’s talks with updated plans to reach the Paris goals, though the EU finally agreed its long-term target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Experts say more ambitious emissions cuts are needed globally if the Paris pledge to hold global heating to no more than 2C is to be met.
Continue reading...More than 700 houses have been destroyed since the bushfire crisis began. What happens next for those who have lost everything?
One month after a bushfire burned the home they built from scratch in the northern New South Wales town of Nymboida, Stu Mackay is sifting through the rubble to find cast-iron tools. The tools are heirlooms, and the Mackays will need them to rebuild.
Theirs is one of 632 houses lost in NSW since Friday 8 November, when deadly weather conditions sent fast-moving bushfires through communities along the state’s north coast. Guardian Australia spoke to four people who lost their home or business on that first day.
Continue reading...Hundreds of demonstrators call for international hub in Amsterdam to curb emissions
Dutch military police have begun forcibly removing a group of climate protesters at Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, after they refused to leave during a demonstration organised by Greenpeace.
Hundreds of protesters attended the demonstration on Saturday calling on the international air hub to adopt a plan to curb greenhouse emissions. The group had been allowed to protest outside the building only, but they broke that restriction, arguing that citizens’ rights to peaceful protest should not be restricted.
Continue reading...Brazil, India and China singled out in UN talks as acting to block agreement on article 6 of Paris agreement
Poor countries have accused a handful of richer nations of holding up progress on tackling the climate crisis at UN talks in Madrid, as demonstrators and activists vented their frustration in the final hours of two weeks of negotiations.
The talks dragged on with negotiators battling into the early hours of Saturday to salvage a result, as governments wrangled over the details of a seemingly arcane issue: carbon markets, governed by a provision of the 2015 Paris agreement known as article 6.
Continue reading...Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest in November more than doubled the same period last year
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped to the highest level for the month of November since record-keeping began in 2015, according to preliminary government data published.
Destruction of the world’s largest tropical rainforest totalled 563 square kms in November, which is more than double the area in the same month last year, according to the country’s space research agency INPE on Friday.
Continue reading...Erisvan Soares Guajajara’s body was found with knife wounds in Maranhão region
A 15-year-old indigenous boy has been murdered in Brazil on the edge of a heavily-deforested indigenous reserve in the state of Maranhão, on the fringes of the Amazon.
The murder, the fourth from the Guajajara tribe in recent weeks, came as a wave of racist abuse against indigenous people swept social media in the state.
Continue reading...Drought is not the only threat to the river system: the plan to save it is in doubt as states spar over the best way forward
The millennium drought led to the realisation Australia’s major river system would die unless there was united action to save it; the latest drought is threatening to undo the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
The basin states – Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – as well as the federal government, are due to meet on Tuesday in Brisbane amid threats from the NSW Nationals that it will walk away from the plan unless major changes are made.
Continue reading...Former first lady told climate activist ‘don’t let anyone dim your light’ after Trump said teen had an ‘anger management problem’
Michelle Obama has sent a public message of support to the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg after the teenager was mocked by Donald Trump.
“@GretaThunberg, Don’t let anyone dim your light,” the former first lady wrote following a visit to Vietnam. “Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all. Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”
Continue reading...Poland opts out of 2050 net-zero emissions after hours of wrangling over timetables and money
European Union leaders have vowed to press on with a major economic plan to confront the climate emergency, despite Poland’s opt-out from a net-zero emissions target by 2050.
The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told journalists he had secured an exemption for Poland on the 2050 target, which is meant to become the legally binding centrepiece of the “European Green Deal” , a plan to transform Europe’s economy announced two days ago.
Continue reading...Exclusive: forest regrowth can reabsorb emissions from fires but scientists fear natural carbon ‘sinks’ have been compromised
Bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland have emitted a massive pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere since August that is equivalent to almost half of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Analysis by Nasa shows the NSW fires have emitted about 195m tonnes of CO2 since 1 August, with Queensland’s fires adding a further 55m tonnes over the same period.
Continue reading...Fat innkeeper worms typically burrow under the sand but recent storms have swept away layers, leaving them exposed
I’m not sure this is what the Weather Girls meant when they sang, “It’s raining men.”
Related: 'Truly astounding': inside the Farallon Islands' battle against a plague of mice
Continue reading...Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard
Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.
Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.
Continue reading...Greenpeace activists unfurl climate emergency banner on Brussels venue before event
European leaders meeting at a summit in Brussels will make a new attempt to set the European Union on course for carbon neutrality by 2050, in a test of the bloc’s credibility on the climate emergency.
Hours before EU leaders were due to arrive on Thursday, Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner on the side of the summit venue warning of the climate emergency.
Continue reading...Melting sea ice is prompting fevered dreams of ever-easier access, and a renewed jockeying among Arctic nations for status, profit and ownership
I could not keep my eyes off the graves, could not stop staring at them even as I walked away, turning repeatedly to look over my shoulder at them as I slogged my way across the gravel-strewn shore of Beechey Island until they disappeared from view.
It was profoundly saddening to contemplate their presence on a low-lying, windswept outpost of the Canadian Arctic, to imagine the fear and loneliness those buried here must have felt as they faced death in the harshest of conditions, thousands of miles and a world removed from their homes. And yet, they were the lucky ones, the first casualties of an expedition that vanished 173 years ago while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage between Atlantic and Pacific, whose remaining members met their doom after their ships became frozen in never-yielding sea ice, who perished one by one waiting for a summer that never came.
Continue reading...Green groups say 52% vote against federal government facility should rule out region as potential site
Residents in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges have voted narrowly against having a nuclear waste dump in their region.
About 52% of the people who took part in the ballot voted against the federal government’s facility being established on land near Hawker.
Continue reading...Popular broadcaster and scientist hailed as man who ‘inspired a whole generation’
The naturalist and broadcaster David Bellamy has died aged 86, the Conservation Foundation has said.
Bellamy died on Wednesday, according to the foundation, of which he was president and co-founder. In a statement, David Shreeve, its director, said: “Sadly, I have to report that David Bellamy died this morning. David and I worked together on a variety of projects in various places since launching the Conservation Foundation in 1982.
Continue reading...Everything from travel to air quality has been looked at in order to create ‘a growth that gives back’
Nearly every major aspect of the European economy is to be re-evaluated in light of the imperatives of the climate and ecological emergency, according to sweeping new plans set out by the European commission on Wednesday.
The comprehensive nature of the European Green Deal – which encompasses the air we breathe to how food is grown, from how we travel to the buildings we inhabit – was set out in a flurry of documents as Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, made her appeal to member states and parliamentarians in Brussels to back the proposals, which would represent the biggest overhaul of policy since the foundation of the modern EU.
Continue reading...Bloc considers itself international leader on environment, but progress has been stunted
The European Union considers itself as a leader on the environment and not without cause: policymaking in Brussels moved ahead of the international consensus in the 2000s.
But the soaring rhetoric has not always been matched by the necessary structural changes in the way European economies work and citizens live their lives.
Continue reading...Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has derided Greta Thunberg after the teenage climate activist added her voice to growing international condemnation of a surge of anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon.
Related: Amazon indigenous leaders killed in Brazil drive-by shooting
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