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Deep divisions remain after high-stakes talks end with agreement to help developing world shift to low-carbon economy
Rich and poor countries concluded a trillion-dollar deal on the climate crisis in the early hours of Sunday morning, after marathon talks and days of bitter recriminations ended in what campaigners said was a “betrayal”.
The developing world will receive at least $1.3tn (£1tn) a year in funds to help them shift to a low-carbon economy and cope with the impacts of extreme weather, by 2035.
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Advocates and officials argue that consequences of Israeli siege are inextricably linked to tackling the climate crisis
As countries negotiate over climate finance, Palestinian officials and advocates have come to Cop29 in Baku to highlight global heating’s intersection with another crisis: Israel’s siege on Gaza.
“The Cop [meetings] are very keen to protect the environment, but for whom?” said Ahmed Abu Thaher, director of projects and international relations at Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, who had travelled to Cop29 from Ramallah. “If you are killing the people there, for whom are you keen to protect the environment and to minimise the effects of climate change?”
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Traders at a big machinery show say inheritance tax changes affecting the rural economy have had an immediate impact on business
A shiny new tractor is pulling a huge orange trailer, while a commentator explains how best to manoeuvre it to tip grain, watched by a group of farmers wrapped up warmly in wellies, coats and bobble hats, some holding spaniels on leads.
Others are checking out the latest models of combine harvesters and crop sprayers, parked on snowy ground at the Midlands Machinery Show, but few seem to be buying, and the changes to inheritance tax for agricultural properties announced in Rachel Reeves’s October budget are never far from anyone’s lips.
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We are used to seasonal droughts in the Karoo. But this did not stop. This is Sybil’s story
Location Sutherland, South Africa
Disaster Southern Africa drought, 2015-2023
Isabella Visagie, known to everyone in her life as Sybil, is a 57-year-old sheep farmer, wife and mother from the Karoo, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. In 2015 a drought began that would bring the community in which she lived toits knees. Theprovince has been locked in a drought sincethen.The climate crisis intensified flash droughts acrosssouthern Africa in 2015-16, increased the probability of the 2015-17 drought in the south-west of neighbouringWestern Cape, and is increasing temperatures in the Northern Cape, as well as decreasing rainfall in parts of that province.
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Targeted research must be launched urgently to save sea creatures and plant life, oceanography centre warns
Britain is facing a future of increasingly catastrophic marine heatwaves that could destroy shellfish colonies and fisheries and have devastating impacts on communities around the coast of the UK.
That is the stark conclusion of a new report by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), based in Southampton, which is pressing for the launch of a targeted research programme as a matter of urgency to investigate how sudden temperature rises in coastal seawater could affect marine habitats and seafood production in the UK.
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Hitchin, Hertfordshire: One minute I was smelling my favourite pudding, the next I was worrying what the squirrel had in its claws
It was a beautiful morning and as I was walking into school, I smelled our delicious food – apple crumble (my favourite pudding!) – being cooked. There was a chill in the air and the dew on the grass reflected the morning light.
Then I noticed something scampering towards the kitchen – a black squirrel. It was holding something in its claws, probably a nut or a scrap of food from the kitchen. Its tail was twitching and its obsidian eyes were darting around looking for danger. Then it was gone. I was left wondering where it was going next and if it had a home with a family. Perhaps the squirrel was taking apple crumble for his family.
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The world will continue to be absurd, but you, with all your passion, can still make your corner of it more bearable
The questionI am finding it ever more difficult to be in this nasty world. Everything that I cherish is being destroyed and there is nowhere to go to find solace. I’ve always loved nature – but when I go for a walk now, I see every ash tree dying, I hear the loss of birdsong, I see how few insects there are. When I read the news, I just cannot comprehend how cruel humans are able to be, racism, misogyny, religious hate, cruelty to animals… The list is endless.
I work in climate change and am having to pretend every day that there is still a chance we can prevent catastrophic climate change. I find it ever harder to be around people who don’t get just how bad things are. I don’t have kids and am single. I can’t talk to my family about it because they are rightwing, wealthy climate sceptics. They patronise me (despite the fact I’m nearly 60 and a chief executive).
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Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and one group is profiting from these extremes: the water-grabbing multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for it in bottles
After catastrophic floodsengulfed Valencia last month, killing more than 200 people, it might seem counterintuitive to think about water shortages. But as the torrents of filthy water swept through towns and villages, people were left without electricity, food supplies – and drinking water. “It was brutal: cars, chunks of machinery, big stones, even dead bodies were swept along in the water. It gushed into the ground floor of buildings, into little shops, bakeries, hairdressers, the English school, bars: all were destroyed. This was climate change for real, climate change in capital letters,” says Josep de la Rubia of Valencia’s Ecologists in Action, describing the scene in the satellite towns south of the Valencian capital.
In the aftermath, hundreds of thousands of people were reliant on emergency tankers of water or donations of bottled water from citizen volunteers. Within a fortnight, the authorities had reconnected the tap water of 90% of the 850,000 people in affected areas, but all were advised to boil it before drinking it or to use bottled water. Across the region, 100 sewage treatment plants were damaged; in some areas, human waste seeped into flood waters, dead animals were swept into rivers and sodden rubbish and debris piled up. Valencia is on the brink of a sanitation crisis.
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From YouTube video guides to sourcing parts, here are some ways to extend the life of your appliances and sentimental items
One of the best ways we can reduce our household’s carbon footprint is to repair things instead of throwing them away. But it’s also a way of life for many people.
“Seems I’ve spent most of my life fixing stuff because I was brought up that way,” observes Phil, from Bedfordshire. “I look at everything that comes my way as potentially useful and more often than not, it is,” writes Richard, a designer from Essex.
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Residents concerned as North Carolina city lifts boil advisory and scientists detect lead in water at area schools
When the western North Carolina town Swannanoa was battered by Hurricane Helene in September, two large trees crushed Stephen Knight’s home. His family of six was launched into a complicated web of survival: finding a temporary home, applying for disaster relief, filing insurance claims.
The new logistics of living included the daily search for food and water. Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea.
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Rezultati nedavno objavljenog istraživanja sugeriraju da bi električna stimulacija mogla biti ključna za održavanje zdravlja tetiva, nudeći nove mogućnosti za popravak i regeneraciju tetiva.
Prema rezultatima nove studije, dnevna doza vitamina B3 smanjuje upalu u plućima pacijenata s kroničnom opstruktivnom plućnom bolesti (KOPB). Ovo otkriće je važno jer upala može dovesti do smanjene funkcije pluća kod oboljelih od KOPB-a.
Nova studija pruža uvjerljive dokaze da gastroezofagealna refluksna bolest (GERB) - stanje koje se tradicionalno prepoznaje kao probavni poremećaj karakteriziran refluksom kiseline i žgaravicama - može utjecati na ključne čimbenike kardiovaskularnog rizika, uključujući krvni tlak, profile lipida i rizik od srčane bolesti.
Rezultati nove studije sugeriraju da mikrobi usne šupljine mogu igrati ulogu u mentalnom zdravlju majke i naglašavaju potencijal za ciljane intervencije tijekom trudnoće za poboljšanje mentalnog zdravlja.
Mlade odrasle osobe s rizikom od psihoze pokazuju smanjenu povezanost mozga, nedostatak koji se čini da se pogoršava korištenjem kanabisa, pokazalo je novo istraživanje. Ovo otkriće utire put liječenju psihoze usmjerenom na simptome koje sadašnji lijekovi propuštaju.
Novo istraživanje pokazalo je da dim cigareta može izazvati poremećaj orofaringealne mikrobiote što pogoršava ozbiljnost infekcije virusom gripe tip A. Inače, već dulje vrijeme poznato je, da je dim cigareta nezdrav i povezan s mnogim različitim respiratornim bolestima.
Žene s poviješću endometrioze i fibroida (mioma) maternice mogle bi imati povećani dugoročni rizik od prerane smrti, pokazalo je veliko istraživanje provedeno u SAD-u.
Unatoč strahovima od akrilamida, ova studija otkriva da kruh od cjelovitih žitarica može zaštititi od raka debelog crijeva, dok bijeli kruh pokazuje potencijalne rizike, ukazuje nova studija.
Rezultati nove studije pokazali su da suplementacija prebioticima, probioticima i sinbioticima rezultira poboljšanom osjetljivošću na inzulin i smanjenom hormonskom neravnotežom kod žena sa sindromom policističnih jajnika (PCOS).
Dijabetes tipa 2 dijagnosticiran prije 50. godine donosi neočekivani zdravstveni rizik, posebno ako ste pretili, ukazuje nova studija. Naime, spomenute osobe izložene su većem riziku od razvoja demencije.
Doba u kojem živimo obilježeno je sve bržim promjenama koje se name?‡u morskom okolišu, a gotovo za sve odgovorni su ljudi. Obalna zona Sredozemlja, pa tako i našeg Jadranskoga mora, mjesto je na kojemu obitava više od polovice ukupnog stanovništva Mediterana te zbog toga ovo usko područje predstavlja i jedan od najugroženijih morskih okoliša.
U našem dijelu svijeta, koji zovemo zapadnim i smatramo razvijenim, prije samo 50 godina nisu sve žene imale pravo glasa na izborima, nisu imale jednak pristup obrazovanju, nisu mogle voditi države i nisu imale pristup visokim pozicijama u poslovnom svijetu.
Gotovo svi su upoznati s činjenicom kako oceani i mora prekrivaju više od 70 % površine Zemlje. Me?‘utim, nedovoljno je prepoznato kako su oceani, mora i obalna područja esencijalni dio Zemljinih ekosustava te kako o njima ovisi cijelo čovječanstvo, bilo na obali ili u dubokoj unutrašnjosti kontinenata! Zašto?
Ovaj cilj održivog razvoja odnosi se na ostvarivanje održive proizvodnje i potrošnje u čemu trenutačno ne uspijevamo jer je ekološki otisak koji ostavljamo i dalje ve?‡i od resursa koje imamo na raspolaganju. Dakle, potrebno je promijeniti načine na koji proizvodimo hranu, smanjiti bacanje hrane, pove?‡ati udjele obnovljive izvore energije u ukupnoj proizvodnji energije, pravilno gospodariti otpadom tijekom čitavog njegovog životnog ciklusa kako bi, me?‘u ostalim što manje utjecali na zaga?‘enje zraka, vode i tla.
Razvoj industrije i infrastrukture kao temelja za pove?‡anje životnog standarda za sve ljude, uz okolišno prihvatljiva rješenja te uključivanje novih tehnologija tema je cilja održivog razvoja koji se odnosi na okolišno prihvatljivu industrijalizaciju, kvalitetnu, pouzdanu, održivu i prilagodljivu infrastrukturu, a sve uz primjenu novih tehnologija, istraživanja i inovacija.
