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Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants
Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found.
Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year.
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Department’s finances were slashed during austerity and campaigners say more cuts will stall progress to meet nature and climate targets
Rachel Reeves has been urged not to cut the government’s environment funding in the budget as analysis shows the department’s finances were slashed at twice the rate of other departments in the austerity years.
Between 2009/10 and 2018/19, the environment department budget declined by 35% in monetary terms and 45% in real terms, according to Guardian analysis of annual reports from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Environment Agency and Natural England. By comparison, the average cut across government departments during the Conservative austerity programme was about 20%. During the first five years of austerity, it was the most cut department.
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Exclusive: Linked accounts on X push petrostate’s posts about climate summit and drown out criticism
Scores of apparently fake social media accounts are boosting Azerbaijan’s hosting of the Cop29 climate summit, an investigation has revealed.
The accounts were mostly set up after July, at which time seven of the top 10 most engaged posts using the hashtags #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan were critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the conflict with Armenia, using hashtags such as #stopgreenwashgenocide. By September this had changed, with all of the top 10 most engaged posts coming from the official Cop29 Azerbaijan account.
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Thousands more people than expected are at the biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, and hotels are full – leading the city’s council to press less orthodox accommodation into service
Robert Baluku, a Ugandan delegate to the UN’s biodiversity summit in Colombia, found himself between a rock and hard place when his team’s accommodation was abruptly cancelled, leaving them stranded before the start of Cop16 in Cali.
The city’s hotels were packed to capacity with thousands of country leaders, scientists, government ministers and UN negotiators, and Baluku was left scrambling for options – until the Motel Deseos (Desires) came to the rescue.
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In 2000, only one of these Arctic beasts was resident in the UK. Now there are 16. Is there any benefit to captivity for this climate-ravaged species?
A small boy calls out the sights as the train speeds through the Suffolk countryside from London Liverpool Street.
“Tractor. Church. Pigs. Polar bear! Dad! A polar bear!”
Sailors visit the polar bear enclosure at London zoo in 1930. Below: a bear at Dudley Zoo in Worcestershire, 1937 (left), and Brumas, the first baby polar bear to be successfully reared in the UK, at London Zoo in 1950. Photographs: Fox/Getty Images; Mirrorpix/Getty Images
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Carbon dioxide concentration has increased by more than 10% in just two decades, reports World Meteorological Organization
The concentration of planet-heating pollutants clogging the atmosphere hit record levels in 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said.
It found carbon dioxide is accumulating faster than at any time in human history, with concentrations having risen by more than 10% in just two decades.
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Their fuel resources have long been plundered by others, while national grids have failed to connect them. Now, solar panels could give more than electricity to Indigenous people
At dusk, Piyulaga village starts to wake up. Families gather at the entrances of their huts, children play and cycle around, and Brazilian country music fills the air as lights flicker on in the small settlement in the Xingu Indigenous territory of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Some residents watch TV while others relax in hammocks with their phones, illuminated by spotlights in the communal area.
It would be trivial but for one detail: lights have only been available for a few weeks, thanks to the installation of new solar panels on each home.
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As Pakistan’s second biggest city takes the lead in the poor air quality index, one artist and activist struggled to find people who cared
It is “smog season” in Lahore. Along with cities in the plains of the Punjab province, October is now popularly called the fifth season in Pakistan as the burning of stubble in the fields after the rice harvest takes the already poor air quality to record lows.
On Monday, Lahore took the world lead on several measures of poor air quality. According to Swiss-based IQAir, which partners with the UN and other agencies to measure pollution, the air quality index was 299 – just two points short of hazardous, followed by Delhi scoring 207. An AQI of 151 to 200 is classified as “unhealthy”, 201 to 300 “very unhealthy” and more than 300 as “hazardous”.
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As a new glamping development seeks to open in the region hammered by extreme weather, Mariposa locals are fighting back
Kathleen Armstrong saw the smoke curling above the tree-covered horizon and turned on her scanner with bated breath. Mariposa was on fire again. It was the Fourth of July, a high-risk time in the California mountain town near Yosemite national park that had already seen its fair share of emergency evacuations.
Memories still fresh from the destructive 2022 Oak fire, Armstrongand her husband rushed to pack up their four dogs as the sky began to glow red and flames raced toward the back door. “It was traumatizing,” she recalled in a recent interview. “It’s a miracle we are still here.”
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The Institute for Contemporary Art in San Francisco has curated a show of ‘alchemized’ toothpaste caps, zip ties, broken computer keys and perfume spray tubes
As a young artist, Miguel Arzabe visited art shows around the US to learn from others’ work. But his biggest source of inspiration were the exhibit catalogues. Fascinated by the documents, he decided to make his own work out of the books themselves.
He cut the pages into thin strips and wove them into a large, intricate Andean tapestry called Last Weaving – because the strips would make a timeless and lasting work of art – completed in 2018.
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