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Expert recommendations will influence plans for energy, housing, transport industry and farming for decades
Labour will next week be confronted with stark policy choices that threaten to expose the fault lines between the Treasury and the government’s green ambitions, as advice for the UK’s next carbon budget is published.
Plans for the energy sector, housing, transport, industry and farming will all be called into question in a sweeping set of recommendations for how the UK can meet the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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North Norfolk: Every morning, an endless flow of pink-footed geese passes overhead. Their comings and goings define the day
The first thing you hear is a raucous cacophony in the distance, ebbing and flowing. Then the first small specks appear, and soon the sky is filled with a seemingly never-ending flow of geese.
These are pink-footed geese, who migrate to north Norfolk at the start of winter along with hundreds of thousands of other geese. They come here to escape the harsh winters of Siberia, Iceland and Greenland, where they breed. Norfolk has an abundance of food compared to the Arctic: leaves, berries, seeds and crop remains.
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In Buriticupu, about 1,200 people risk losing their homes, and residents have seen the problem escalate in 30 years
Authorities in a city in the Brazilian Amazonhave declared a state of emergency after huge sinkholes opened up, threatening hundreds of homes.
Several buildings in Buriticupu, in Maranhão state, have already been destroyed, and about 1,200 people of a population of 55,000 risk losing their homes into a widening abyss.
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US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety
The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”
The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development.
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Net zero policies would result in fewer deaths saving UK billions, say researchers
Countries that weaken or stop their net zero and climate actions may be consigning their populations to decades of preventable illness.
Gains from net zero are often presented as global benefits and mainly for future generations. But less fossil fuel use also means less air pollution which results in local health gains right away.
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From bats to moths, species working the night shift are suffering as light pollution soars
When we think about invertebrates, most of us picture bees, butterflies, worms, crabs or perhaps even a jellyfish. But did you know that at least two-thirds of invertebrates are active at night, meaning many are unlikely to be seen? Invertebrates carry out many of the same functions as their daytime counterparts, in some cases doing so with greater efficiency and variety.
For centuries, artificial light has been a symbol of progress. From the flickering flames of early fires to the dazzling LED displays of modern cities, light has shaped human civilisation. But while we celebrate its convenience, we often overlook the darker side of our obsession with illumination: light pollution.
The Guardian is running theinvertebrate of theyear competition 2025 – and this time it’s global.Nominate your favourite invertebrate, and then, in a few weeks time, we’ll vote on which is the best.
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Consumed by anger and still mourning a brother and bandmate, the British quartet have written their masterpiece. They explain how they’re fighting self-loathing and trying to age responsibly
In a world of low royalties and short attention spans, not many bands make it to 11 albums, much less have their 11th be their masterpiece. But over the course of 20 years, the metalquartet Architects have inched towards this milestone. The Sky, the Earth & All Between sets out its scale in its title, where gigantic pop choruses soar over hellish chasms of churning noise, resulting in the most consistently sublime British rock album of this decade. The band are now at their arena-filling, Metallica-supporting peak, adored by millions.
“But it means nothing,” says frontman, Sam Carter. “Because you don’t believe it. If you can’t access that part of you that lets it in, then it’s pointless.” Drummer and lyricist, Dan Searle, is equally downcast. “I punish myself, I loathe myself,” he says evenly, blinking behind his glasses. “I feel like I’m shit at everything.” Across two decades, the band have been buffeted by poor mental health, creative differences and an instance of particularly traumatic grief. While the pair are quick to joke during our long conversation in a London photo studio, and are clearly ravenously ambitious, I have never met a rock band as candid about their frailties.
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Residents in Topanga Canyon – an area of Indigenous heritage and artists – mobilized against the state’s decision to bring in hazardous materials after wildfires
Twenty years ago, it was called Rodeo Grounds – an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians and surfers living in beach shacks where Topanga Canyon meets the Pacific Ocean. In a bizarre agreement with the former owner some paid as little as $100 a month for rent, raising multiple generations of their families here since the 1950s. But that was before the state purchased the property and started evicting residents in 2001. Julie Howell, who once owned Howell-Green Fine Art Gallery further up in the canyon, says the bohemians were kicked out.
“I actually had a show in my gallery 20 years ago for the group of artists who lived there at Rodeo Grounds, who they kicked out of that spot because it was so environmentally sensitive,” says Howell.
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Residents battle food shortages and health issues after vast areas of forest and farmland burned last year
As she walks away from the house where she raised her family, Isabel Surubí pauses to point at the bed of a stream, now covered with dry leaves, that once supplied her entire community. “The water used to come from here,” she says.
In 2024, wildfires in Bolivia burned more than 10m hectares (about 39,000 sq miles) of forest, farmland and savannah – an area greater than the size of Portugal. After the fires, and the drought that preceded them, the spring feeding Surubí’s village of Los Ángeles in Bolivia’s tropical dry forest ran dry.
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In Grimsby, locals have created a society focused on the environmental and health benefits more trees provide, planting thousands in schools, parks and hedgerows
Billy Dasein was born on Rutland Street, Grimsby, in the front room of the house where he still lives. His father was a fitter, and his mother a housewife who also worked in the Tickler’s jam factory. He left school at 16 and wound up working at Courtauld’s synthetic textiles factory.
Rows of terrace houses, constructed for workers in the booming fish industry, are set out in a grid structure by the docks. Life was similar on all these streets: doors left unlocked, kids out playing. Everyone knew everyone.
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