Category Archives: Environment

NSW records first suspected case of deadly H5 bird flu as virus reaches Australia’s east coast

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Migratory giant petrel discovered near Hawks Nest north of Newcastle infected with H5. Testing under way to determine if it’s highly pathogenic H5N1 strain

New South Wales has its first suspected case of the deadly H5 bird flu in a giant petrel that was found near Hawks Nest, north of Newcastle, on the state’s coast.

If CSIRO testing confirms it is the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, it would mark the first detection of the deadly disease on the Australian east coast.

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Côte d’Ivoire floods kill 59 as west Africa endures torrential rains

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Authorities say rainy season getting deadlier, with Ghana reporting 13 dead and floods hitting Benin, Togo and Nigeria

Floods in Côte d’Ivoire have killed 59 people since May, the communication minister told a cabinet meeting in Abidjan.

There are fears the toll could further rise as rescue teams continue to search for victims during the rainy season, which runs from May until July, the minister, Amadou Coulibaly, added.

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‘Exploratory and curious animals’: mysterious rise in orca sightings off Northumberland coast

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Reasons for increase not clear but experts say it could be welcome sign marine ecosystem is becoming healthier

The Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast have long drawn fans of the natural world keen to catch sight of the resident guillemots and puffins.

But as recently as last week, another much bigger black-and-white animal has been delighting wildlife spotters. Orcas have been appearing more regularly than ever before.

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Trump to attend opening of Roosevelt library amid overturning conservation efforts

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Theodore Roosevelt protected swathes of land, while Trump has lifted them from more than 86m acres

Donald Trump will attend a ribbon cutting for the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library on Wednesday, touting the legacy of a president his own administration is attempting to destroy, critics say.

While in office from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt established five new national parks, protected swaths of land and passed legislation enabling himself and future presidents to proclaim historic landmarks and other objects of historic or scientific interest in federal ownership as national monuments.

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‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?

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Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificant

On first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”

Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollution. In 2019, Scott Morrison, Australia’s then prime minister, used his country’s 1.3% of global emissions to reject any suggestion Australia was not “doing our bit” on climate breakdown. In July, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pointed to his country’s 2% share of global emissions while supporting loopholes in European climate targets. A few months later the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, followed suit, flagging the EU’s 6% share.

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Delhi plans to ban petrol rickshaws and scooters in effort to cut toxic fumes

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Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollution

The unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.

On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually ban petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws in favour of those running on electricity, in an attempt to bring down dangerously high pollution levels in the city by the end of the decade.

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Europe heatwave shows need to reject climate denial ‘lies’, says EU green chief

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Teresa Ribera blames ‘ideologically driven’ falsehoods, driven by those with vested interests in fossil fuels, for attacks on green policy

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says.

Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens.

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Weather tracker: North-west US hit by snow ahead of eastern heatwave

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Western states experience unseasonally low temperatures but New York and Washington DC could reach 40C by end of week

Unseasonal snow has fallen in some parts of the US, while other parts of the country brace for a heatwave this week.

A strong cold front spread into the western US from the northern Pacific over the weekend, bringing an abrupt change in conditions to a region that had been experiencing high summer temperatures amid drought. Temperatures from the Canadian border to California have widely been 5-10C below the norm since Friday, and more than 10C below in some parts farther north. The pattern is expected to remain for much of the coming week.

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New campaign urges public to reduce water use as UK emerges from heatwave

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Exclusive: £75m publicity drive will ask people to treat water as precious resource and cut daily use by 28 litres

The biggest ever campaign to encourage the public to reduce their water use will launch this week, as the UK emerges from record temperatures attributed to the climate crisis.

The £75m publicity drive, called Let’s Save Water, will advise and encourage people to treat water as a precious resource and has a target for everyone to cut their daily use by 28 litres – or two large buckets – from the current average use of about 140 litres a day.

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Heatwave and high humidity to blast much of US: ‘impactful to anyone’

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Forecasters expect days of high temperatures in central and eastern US before Fourth of July and World Cup festivities

A long and dangerous heatwave will blast a large swath of the central and eastern United States for the upcoming week, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Sunday – with temperatures rising ahead of the Fourth of July holiday and feeling even hotter because of high humidity also arriving.

Already parts of the US, especially Phoenix and central Texas, and much of the south-west were experiencing temperatures of about 100F (38C) on Sunday, while the NWS warned of severe wildfire conditions developing across much of the west as new fires popped up across the region.

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Body of boy, 15, recovered from Manchester reservoir amid UK heatwave

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At least seven people have died in water-related incidents during record-breaking June temperatures

The body of a 15-year-old boy has been recovered from a reservoir near Manchester, as police renewed warnings about the dangers of swimming in open water during soaring temperatures.

Greater Manchester police said officers had been called to reports of a boy getting into difficulty in the water near Cowbury reservoir in Stalybridge at about 6.30pm on Saturday. A body was recovered later that evening, and was identified as the missing teenager.

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Germany and Italy swelter in heatwave as records tumble across Europe

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Denmark experiences highest temperature on record on Saturday as weather system spreads eastward

Germany ⁠and Italy endured sweltering conditions on Saturday as a heatwave linked to dozens of deaths in western Europe spread eastwards, after temperatures broke records above 40C (104F).

Denmark registered its highest temperature on record on Saturday, according to the Danish meteorological institute. “With 36.6C north of Odense, we have the warmest day ever since measurements began in 1874,” it said in a post on X.

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Snow and ice on Swiss glaciers melting at alarming rate amid heatwave, expert says

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Accumulation on Switzerland’s glaciers from last winter expected to all be gone by Monday amid ‘enormous’ melt rates across Alps

Swiss glaciers are set to lose an enormous amount of ice due to the heatwave battering Europe, according to the head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (Glamos).

The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday, marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.

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‘Chock full of incredible animals’: marine expedition uncovers 31 new species in two weeks

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Experts worked in ocean midwater off Brazil at near-record speeds thanks to cutting-edge tech

A marine biology expedition in international waters off the coast of Brazil has discovered 31 new species in just two weeks.

The researchers believe the speed at which the species were found and identified may be a record, in part because of the cutting-edge technology designed and built by the science and engineering team. For the first time on board a ship, the researchers were able to observe the living 3D cellular structure of microbial life thanks to a technological breakthrough nicknamed the Squid.

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Park to protect 12,000 koalas to go ahead via contentious carbon credit deal by Albanese government

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Minns government waited on federal approval of carbon credit scheme before proceeding with long-awaited great koala national park

A long-promised New South Wales great koala national park is set to go ahead after the Albanese government greenlit the state to receive hundreds of millions of dollars for protecting native forests previously earmarked for logging.

The assistant climate change minister, Josh Wilson, said the government had approved a regulatory change that allowed state governments to earn carbon credits by storing carbon dioxide in native forests on public land.

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City of Paris achieves partial victory over TotalEnergies in climate risks case

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French capital hails ‘landmark decision’ against oil firm relating to disclosure of emissions from oil and gas products

A Paris court has ​ruled that the French oil company TotalEnergies must disclose the climate risks linked to emissions from its oil and gas products and set out plans to ⁠address them in a high-stakes case brought by NGOs and the city of Paris.

The ruling on Thursday is a partial victory for climate change NGOs seeking to apply France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law to the climate crisis. However, the ⁠court stopped short of ordering specific measures such as limiting overseas exploration and production or setting binding ​emissions reduction targets.

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Unions urge teachers to strike as French school exams go ahead in up to 40C heat

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Claims health of staff and children at risk as France struggles to adapt heat-trap school buildings

Teachers in France are risking their own and students’ health in overheated schools as a severe heatwave sets new record temperatures, education unions said, urging staff to strike over “unacceptable working conditions”.

Several teaching unions on Thursday issued a joint statement denouncing a “blatant lack of preparation” by the government, after teachers have had to work in classrooms where temperatures reached up to 40C.

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‘Act on the evidence outside the window’: Andy Burnham urged to stick to net zero targets if he becomes PM

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Mayor of Manchester is coming under pressure from some to ditch net zero targets but this could be highly damaging on many levels

Britain’s net zero economy is booming. The sector is worth £100bn a year to the UK, has outpaced other sectors, and supports higher-paying jobs than the average.

For a union leader to suggest that the man who has overseen this impressive record – the energy secretary, Ed Miliband – would be a “noose around the neck” of job creation, as Unite’s Sharon Graham has done, might seem extraordinary.

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Datacentres are growing target of global climate-related legal cases, report finds

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LSE analysis highlights litigation linked to energy sources, water consumption and air pollution

The proliferation of datacentres and AI is increasingly at the forefront of environmental litigation around the world, from the US and UK to Chile to Ireland, a report has found.

In an analysis of about 3,600 climate-related lawsuits filed since 2015, the latest annual review of climate litigation by the London School of Economics (LSE) found a growing number of cases challenging the energy sources, water consumption and air pollution of datacentres, all of which have related climate implications.

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Papua New Guinea at risk of food shortages as El Niño brings frost and drought

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Oxfam predicts PNG will be worst-hit country in Pacific from the weather pattern, with up to 3 million people affected nationwide

Families across Papua New Guinea’s Highlands are facing depleted harvests and the threat of hunger after the El Niño weather pattern brought frost and prolonged dry conditions that have destroyed food gardens providing sustenance and income for thousands of households.

The effects of El Niño emerged in recent weeks, bringing drought conditions, falling water levels and frost that are threatening food security in some of the country’s most agriculturally productive regions.

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