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State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat
Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies, the World Meteorological Organization has warned.
The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system.
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Sixty years after the discovery of a colony of Juan Fernández fur seals, previously thought to be extinct, a landmark agreement extends ‘no take’ zone around the wildlife-rich archipelago
Six decades ago, pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle made a bittersweet discovery while diving off Chile’s oceanic islands with the US National Science Foundation vessel, the Anton Bruun. She found the remains of a baby fur seal, one of the world’s most isolated aquatic mammals.
Endemic to the Juan Fernández archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, and once prized for its fur and meat, the species, Arctocephalus philippii, was believed to have been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. But, Earle said: “A baby must have a mum and dad somewhere.”
Pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle. Photograph: Andy Mann/Blue Marine Foundation
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A survey has revealed the vast array of wildlife – some never seen before – living within the south-east Asian country’s karst ecosystems. The work was led by international wildlife conservation charity Fauna & Flora in collaboration with Cambodia’s environment ministry and field experts
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Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland is ferret-free after £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI
Predatory feral ferrets have been removed from an island for the first time ever, in a boost for Northern Ireland’s largest seabird colony.
Rathlin Island is ferret-free after a £4.5m five-year partnership led by RSPB NI involving islanders, charities, volunteers and a red labrador called Woody.
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Residents reported headaches, eye and skin irritation and breathing difficulties as Israeli bombings blanketed Tehran with pollutants
Satellite images of Tehran show toxic fires caused by Israeli bombings on oil depots were still burning days after the strikes, which have caused fears of serious health complications for millions of residents in the Iranian capital.
Clouds of smoke from bombings on 7 March on multiple facilities blanketed the city with pollutants ranging from soot to oil particles to sulphur dioxide. Hours later, a passing storm showered Tehran with poisonous, oil-filled rain.
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Survivors describe how rangers and staff were targeted by an armed group during a raid on DRC’s national park earlier this month
Nearby Congolese soldiers had received warnings of the attack in the morning. But the soldiers did not arrive until late in the evening, long after the killings were over.
It happened before dawn on Tuesday 3 March, as a dozen rangers at Upemba national park headquarters were being briefed by their commander before the day’s routine anti-poaching patrol. At 5.40am machine-gun fire began to rattle out of the surrounding darkness.
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Mwnt, Ceredigion: There are many isolated spots along this stretch of coastline. On a rare sunny day, I take a walk to one of them
Looking south from the low cliffs of Gwbert, the steep rock stacks beyond the mouth of the Afon Teifi are blurred by an early haze. Below me, a fishing boat heads out to check on the crab pots that dot the coast, pursued by an intent gathering of gulls. To the west, as the shadows harden, the low whale-back of Cardigan Island is marked by curved bands of tightly folded rock – the ancient, resilient Ordovician geology that forms the spine of this coast. Somewhere above me, a skylark burbles its tangled thread of song in the morning sun.
Heading north, the high coastal plain drops suddenly away to reveal the beach at Mwnt, backed by the steep, isolated hill which gives it its name. This is a special, favoured place – one to return to at intervals. Today the blue sky, so rarely seen in recent weeks, hangs like a dome over the pale foam of the shoreline, and the sunlight picks out the stark white rendered form of Eglwys y Grog – Holy Cross church – a tiny chapel hunched in the shelter of the hillside. The stone-bounded churchyard is home to a pair of stonechats that flit between gravestone perches with their characteristic call – which is uncannily like two pebbles being snicked together.
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Animals will feature on £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England says, but which creatures should make the cut?
Native British wildlife will feature on the next set of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England has announced, but it has yet to be decided which creatures will make the cut.
While politicians from Nigel Farage to Ed Davey have sought to confect outrage about ditching Winston Churchill and Jane Austen for badgers or blackbirds, public consultations by the Bank show that people favour the switch to wildlife. Regularly changing images on the notes is a measure to foil counterfeiters.
Chris Packham is a naturalist, broadcaster, campaigner and author
Naturalist Lucy Lapwing is the author of Love is a Toad: Exploring Our Relationship With Nature
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Asking for coffee in a reusable cup or reusing shopping bags is second nature for many, but bringing your own containers for takeaway can take getting used to. Here are some tips to get started
Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint
Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com
Before the advent of cheap, single-use take away packaging, legend has it that Australian families used to bring saucepans to their local Chinese restaurant to pick up their Friday night take-out. Until the early 1980s, when concerns about ink contamination outlawed it, fish and chips came wrapped in old newspapers.
These days, Australians’ love affair with caffeine has made reusable coffee cups ubiquitous, and most of us have a stack of tupperware at home for school lunches. Yet fronting up to the salad bar or deli counter with your own container still feels a bit weird.
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In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue among voters, especially in rural areas
In one telling of the story, the golden fields of a proud farming nation are under attack. Besieged by an industrial sprawl of solar panels, they are being smothered at the behest of an urban elite.
That narrative has failed to thrive in conservative heartlands such as Texas and Hungary, which have embraced solar power while lambasting green rules. But it is taking root in Denmark, the most climate-ambitious nation on Earth. “We say yes to fields of wheat,” said Inger Støjberg, the leader of the rightwing populist Denmark Democrats in a speech in 2024. “And we say no to fields of iron!”
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