Category Archives: Environment

Trump’s environmental rule-shredding will put lives at risk, ex-EPA heads say

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Former agency leaders, including two Republicans, say rollbacks by Lee Zeldin could cause ‘severe harms’

Three former Environmental Protection Agency leaders sounded an alarm on Friday, saying rollbacks proposed by the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, endanger the lives of millions of Americans and abandon the agency’s dual mission to protect the environment and human health.

Zeldin said on Wednesday he planned to roll back 31 key environmental rules on everything from clean air to clean water and climate change. The former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy called Zeldin’s announcement “the most disastrous day in EPA history”.

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‘Germany is back’: Merz secures Greens’ support for defence spend boost

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Backing of Greens is tantamount to approval of chancellor-in-waiting’s proposal to relax debt brake

Germany’s conservative chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, has said he has secured the support of the Green party for his radical plan to increase spending on defence and infrastructure after marathon talks that went through the night, paving the way for its approval in parliament.

“Germany is back,” Merz said in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making its large contribution to the defence of freedom and peace in Europe.”

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Weather tracker: Cyclone Jude causes chaos in Mozambique

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More than 200mm of rain fell in 24 hours, destroying 900 homes and leaving 40,000 people without power

Cyclone Jude was the third cyclone to hit Mozambique this season. First spotted as a depression last Friday to the south-west of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, it intensified over the next few days to a moderate tropical storm, affecting northern Madagascar on Saturday and killing at least one person.

Jude strengthened into a tropical cyclone as it tracked westwards over the Mozambique Channel, where sea surface temperatures of close to 30C provided the heat and moisture necessary to fuel the cyclone.

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UK hoping to work with China to counteract Trump’s climate-hostile policies

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Ed Miliband visits Beijing as part of plan to create global axis working in favour of climate action

The UK is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and a host of developing countries, to offset the impact of Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies and his sharp veer towards climate-hostile countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, arrived in Beijing on Friday for three days of talks with top Chinese officials, including discussions on green technology supply chains, coal and the critical minerals needed for clean energy. The UK’s green economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy, but access to components and materials will be crucial for that to continue.

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Richest farmers in England may lose sustainability funding in Defra review

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Exclusive: Officials explore restricting incentive to allocate greater funds to farms with less money and more nature

The richest farmers will not be able to apply for post-Brexit nature funding under plans for England being considered by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Farming groups and climate experts have warned that such a plan would “leave farmers in the cold” and make it more difficult for the UK to reach net zero by 2050.

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‘All the birds returned’: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation

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The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farming

It was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.

The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu.

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National Trust creates living gene bank of endangered native black poplar

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Cuttings of tree captured by John Constable being planted on restored Devon floodplain

Captured by John Constable in one of his most celebrated paintings, the black poplar tree was once as common as oak and beech in Britain.

Now the rarest and most threatened native species in the country, the National Trust is creating a living gene bank of the black poplar to ensure Constable’s The Hay Wain does not become a tribute to an extinct breed.

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Destruction of Ukraine dam caused ‘toxic timebomb’ of heavy metals, study finds

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Researchers say environmental impact from Kakhovka dam explosion comparable to Chornobyl nuclear disaster

The destruction of a large Ukrainian dam in 2023 triggered a “toxic timebomb” of environmental harm, a study has found.

Lakebed sediments holding 83,000 tonnes of heavy metals were exposed when the Kakhovka dam was blown up one year into Russia’s invasion, researchers found.

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Baby wombat-snatching US influencer at risk of losing Australian visa

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Video footage, described as ‘callous’ and ‘pretty dreadful’, showed Sam Jones grabbing the joey from its mother at night

A US hunting influencer who shared video of herself snatching a baby wombat away from its mother is being investigated for a potential breach of her Australian visa.

The footage, with scenes described as “callous” by the RSPCA and “pretty dreadful” by the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, showed the Montana-based influencer Sam Jones grabbing the wombat joey at night as it was walking with its mother.

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Atmospheric river to wallop California as study finds storms getting worse

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Thunderstorms and high winds forecast for San Francisco Bay while southern California under flood watch

A powerful atmospheric river storm was set to wallop California on Wednesday evening, drenching large swaths of the state with rain and bringing several feet of snow to the mountains – the latest in a wave of intense storms that new research shows are getting worse.

Much of northern California was under a winter storm warning because of the gusty winds and heavy snow in the forecast that the National Weather Service (NWS) said would lead to “difficult to impossible travel conditions”. Severe thunderstorms and high winds were predicted across the San Francisco Bay area, according to reports.

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Dead and dying Port Pirie birds and bats exposed to lead at 3,000 times acceptable levels

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South Australia’s EPA did not open a formal investigation into the source of the lead poisoning, despite referral from the Department of Primary Industries

South Australia’s Environment Protection Authority did not open a formal investigation into what may have killed dozens of birds in Port Pirie, despite tests showing some of the animals had been exposed to 3,000 times the acceptable level of lead.

In July 2024, residents of the industrial town raised the alarm when they found dead and dying native birds and flying foxes in local parks and green spaces.

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Trump officials to reconsider whether greenhouse gases cause harm amid climate rollbacks

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Activists horrified as EPA reverses pollution laws and reviews landmark finding that gases harm public health

Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an extraordinary cavalcade of pollution rule rollbacks on Wednesday, led by the announcement it would potentially scrap a landmark 2009 finding by the US government that planet-heating gases, such carbon dioxide, pose a threat to human health.

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Balance of power: why Loch Ness hydro storage schemes are stirring up trouble

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As Scottish energy firms race to meet challenges of storing power, critics fear plans will affect delicate hydrology of loch

Brian Shaw stood at the edge of Loch Ness and pointed to a band of glistening pebbles and damp sand skirting the shore. It seemed as if the tide had gone out.

Overnight, Foyers, a small pumped-storage power station, had recharged itself, drawing up millions of litres of water into a reservoir high up on a hill behind it, ready for release through its turbines to boost the UK’s electricity supply. That led to the surface of Loch Ness, the largest body of freshwater in the UK, falling by 14cm in a matter of hours.

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Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda could keep the world hooked on oil and gas

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The US president is making energy deals with Japan and Ukraine, and in Africa has even touted resurrecting coal

Donald Trump’s repeated mantra of “drill, baby, drill” demands that more oil and gas be extracted in the United States, but the president has set his sights on an even broader goal: keeping the world hooked on planet-heating fossil fuels for as long as possible.

In deals being formulated with countries such as Japan and Ukraine, Trump is using US leverage in tariffs and military aid to bolster the flow of oil and gas around the world. In Africa, his administration has even touted the resurrection of coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, to bring energy to the continent.

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Northern Territory’s growing saltwater crocodile population gorging on nine times more prey than 50 years ago

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Research shows apex predators are increasing in numbers and excreting important nutrients into Top End waterways

The growing saltwater crocodile population in the Northern Territory has led to the creatures gorging on nine times more prey than they did 50 years ago, with the apex predators contributing important nutrients to Top End waterways, new research suggests.

Saltwater crocodile populations have increased exponentially in recent decades, from less than 3,000 in 1971, when a ban on hunting was introduced, to more than 100,000 animals today.

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‘Patchy and behind deadline’: MPs attack UK rollout of EV charging points

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Committee warns of serious injustice to disabled motorists and those reliant on public chargers

The rollout of electric vehicle chargers across Britain is “patchy”, behind deadline and ignores the needs of disabled drivers, the parliamentary spending watchdog has found.

A report published by the public accounts committee (PAC) warned that the charging points needed to give drivers confidence for the switch to EVs were still lacking, particularly on Britain’s biggest roads.

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Farmers in England furious as Defra pauses post-Brexit payment scheme

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Applications to the sustainable farming initiative no longer accepted but no clarity on what will replace it and when

Farming and countryside groups in England are furious that the government has paused a key post-Brexit farming payments scheme with little information about what will replace it and when.

In a statement on Tuesday evening the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the sustainable farming incentive would no longer accept new applications.

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Chicken manure can be classified as industrial waste, judge rules

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US-style mega-farms in Herefordshire face tough new regulations after high court ruling

Industrial poultry farms face tough new regulations around the disposal of chicken manure after a judge ruled it can be classified as waste and requires a detailed and transparent plan to dispose of it without damaging the environment.

The high court ruling means new US-style mega-farms in Herefordshire will have to deal with poultry manure as if it was industrial waste.

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Argentina flooding: 16 killed as two girls swept away by rising waters

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Authorities warn more fatalities expected as a year’s worth of rain falls on Bahía Blanca in eight hours

Rescue teams in Argentina are searching for two girls, aged one and five, who were swept away by severe floods that ripped through Buenos Aires province, killing at least 16 people.

A year’s worth of rain fell on the city of Bahía Blanca and the town of Cerri on Friday, rapidly inundating neighbourhoods and destroying homes, bridges and roads. The rainfall – 400mm (15.7in) recorded in just eight hours – was more than twice the city’s previous record of 175mm (6.8in) set in 1930.

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What the world needs now is more fossil fuels, says Trump’s energy secretary

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Chris Wright signals abandonment of Biden’s ‘irrational, quasi-religious’ climate policies at industry conference

The world needs more planet-heating fossil fuel, not less, Donald Trump’s newly appointed energy secretary, Chris Wright, told oil and gas bigwigs on Monday.

“We are unabashedly pursuing a policy of more American energy production and infrastructure, not less,” he said in the opening plenary talk of CERAWeek, a swanky annual conference in Houston, Texas, led by the financial firm S&P Global.

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