-
Lobbyists representing industry responsible for a quarter to a third of global emissions participated in key talks at the UN climate summit
More than 300 industrial agriculture lobbyists have participated at this year’s UN climate talks taking place in the Brazilian Amazon, where the industry is the leading cause of deforestation, a new investigation has found.
The number of lobbyists representing the interests of industrial cattle farming, commodity grains and pesticides is up 14% on last year’s summit in Baku – and larger than the delegation of the world’s 10th largest economy, Canada, which brought 220 delegates to Cop30 in Belém, according to the joint investigation by DeSmog and the Guardian.
Continue reading...
-
Exclusive: Experts urge water companies to update plants to avoid another catastrophe, as analysis reveals scale of use
At least 15 sewage plants on England’s south coast use the same contaminated plastic beads that were spilled in an environmental disaster in Camber Sands, Guardian analysis can reveal.
Environmental experts have urged water companies to update these old treatment plants to avoid another catastrophic spill, which can lead to plastic beads being permanently embedded in the environment and killing marine wildlife.
Continue reading...
-
Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’
The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.
Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.
Continue reading...
-
It started with a migraine but ended in hospital. When Gowend had dengue the first time she had no idea she was pregnant. This is Gowend’s story
Location Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
Disaster Ill with dengue
Gowend (not her real name) lives in Burkina Faso. In 2023, in the early stages of pregnancy, she was admitted to hospital and diagnosed as having had dengue fever, a viral illness transmitted by mosquitoes which is, in a small number of cases, potentially fatal. It has been linked with miscarriage by some studies. Dengue is on the rise in Africa and Asia, partly thanks to the warming climate, andis increasingly being detected in Europe, too.
Continue reading...
-
It is one of the world’s most vital carbon sinks, but this tropical rainforest is losing out when it comes to climate policy and funding
In October 2023, leaders, scientists and policymakers from three of the world’s great rainforest regions – the Amazon, the Congo, and the Borneo-Mekong basins – assembled in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. They were there to discuss one urgent question: how to save the planet’s last great tropical forests from accelerating destruction.
For those present, the question was existential. But to their dismay, almost no one noticed. “There was very little acknowledgment that this was happening, outside of the Congo basin region,” says Prof Simon Lewis, a lecturer at the University of Leeds and University College London, and co-chair of the Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI).
Continue reading...
-
Two-year study finds area of woodland in Devon to be ideal habitat to support a controlled release of the creatures
The prospect of European wildcats prowling in south-west England has taken a leap forward after a two-year study concluded a reintroduction was feasible – and most local people were positive about the idea.
Felis silvestrishas been absent from mid-Devon for more than a century, but the area has been judged to have the right kind of habitat to support a population of the wildcat.
The south-west contains enough woodland cover connected by other suitable habitat to support a sustainable wildcat population.
Two surveys were conducted by researchers at the University of Exeter. In one, 71% of 1,000 people liked the idea of wildcat return. In the other, 83% of 1,425 who responded expressed positivity.
Wildcats pose no significant risk to existing endangered wildlife populations such as bats and dormice. Wildcat diets concentrate on widespread commonly found species, with 75% of their prey consisting of small mammals including voles, rats, wood mice and rabbits.
Wildcats pose no threat to people, domestic pets or farming livestock such as lambs. Commercial and domestic poultry can be protected from wildcats with the same precautions deployed for existing predators such as foxes.
Continue reading...
-
Hogshaw, Derbyshire: To hear one in December isn’t totally unheard of – any excuse to revel in that uplifting, deceptively simple sound
It was unmistakable: at dawn, through the bedroom window, a voice of declarative power and pure tones with a volume to rattle the glass. Did-uu … did-uu … did-uu, chwit, chwit chwit. It was a song thrush, and one of those rare occasions when I’ve heard one singing this side of Christmas. I’m tempted to add the “wrong” side, but we’ll come to that.
The customary seasonal order for our three breeding thrushes starting to sing is mistle, then song, with blackbird a month later. However, if we are ranking them in terms of vocal merit then that sequence is usually reversed. It must be added instantly, however, that if the vote were purely on mass approval then the song thrush would come first.
Continue reading...
-
Ending use of coal, oil and gas is essential in tackling climate crisis – but even talking about it is controversial
Continue reading...
-
Climate summit in Brazil needs to find way to stop global heating accelerating amid stark divisions
“It broke my heart.” Surangel Whipps, president of the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, was sitting in the front row of the UN’s general assembly in New York when Donald Trump made a long and rambling speech, his first to the UN since his re-election, on 23 September.
Whipps was prepared for fury and bombast from the US president, but what followed was shocking. Trump’s rant on the climate crisis – a “green scam”, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated”, “predictions made by stupid people” – was an unprecedented attack on science and global action from a major world leader.
Continue reading...
-
Brazil’s president welcomes world leaders while navigating divided government, promising action on deforestation and emissions
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has welcomed world leaders to Belém for the first climate summit in the Amazon, where conservationists hope he can be a champion for the rainforest and its people.
But with a divided administration, a hostile Congress and 20th-century developmentalist instincts, this global figurehead of the centre left has a balancing act to perform in advocating protection of nature and a reduction of emissions.
Continue reading...
