Démographie

Activist tells Swedish officials she has been subjected to harsh treatment, including insufficient food and water

EU officials warn climate breakdown and wildlife loss ‘are ruining ecosystems that underpin the economy’ […] The European way of life is being jeopardised by environmental degradation, a report has found, with EU officials warning against weakening green rules. The continent has made “important progress” in cutting planet-heating pollution, according to the European Environment Agency, but the death of wildlife and breakdown of the climate are ruining ecosystems that underpin the economy.

The planet is nearing dangerous limits. Yet progress on clean energy shows what’s possible. With political will, cooperation can still avert the worst of the climate crisis

Une commission d’enquête des Nations unies a désormais confirmé ce que les organisations israéliennes, palestiniennes et internationales de défense des droits humains, ainsi que de nombreux spécialistes du génocide, affirmaient déjà : la guerre menée par Israël à Gaza équivaut à un génocide. La commission estime que les massacres, les attaques contre les infrastructures vitales, la famine, les déplacements de population et le refus de soins médicaux répondent à la définition juridique du crime le plus grave de l’histoire. Elle conclut que l’intention génocidaire est « la seule conclusion raisonnable » à tirer des déclarations des dirigeants israéliens et du comportement de leurs forces à Gaza.

Report cites scale of killings and aid blockages, and calls on member countries to punish those responsible

Legal analysis has accused Israel of committing genocide in four out of five categories as defined by 1948 convention

A UN commission has found Israel’s war in Gaza ranks among history’s greatest crimes. The UK government must stop hiding behind legal fictions and recognise the reality

Climate.gov, which went dark this summer, to be revived by volunteers as climate.us with expanded missionEarlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process.

Trump’s dictator-like behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically, we discount it. But now it’s time to call it what it is

Gains in cutting deaths from tuberculosis at risk as health officials warn clinics forced to ration drugs and testing

Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout

Suspension of Soy moratorium could open up area of rainforest the size of Portugal to destruction

The long read: Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying

Some experts tee up public comment on EPA report calling fossil fuel concerns overblown, as others fast-track review

Almost 100 countries reject draft treaty as ‘unambitious’ and ‘inadequate’

An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

Writer says for many years he has refused to use word but now must ‘with immense pain and with a broken heart’

Exclusive: Increasingly extreme weather a threat to production and supply chains in Britain and elsewhere

Exclusive: Study claims sites previously ranked first can lose 79% of traffic if results appear below Google Overview

Healthy environment a human right, UN court says in landmark climate ruling

António Guterres says ‘sun is rising on a clean energy age’ as 90% of renewable power projects cheaper than fossil fuels

Heat caused 2,300 deaths across 12 cities, of which 1,500 were down to climate crisis, scientists say

Research in Chile suggests climate crisis makes eruptions more likely and explosive, and warns of Antarctica risk

Forever chemicals have polluted the water supply of 60,000 people, threatening human health, wildlife and the wider ecosystem. But activists say this is just the tip of the Pfas iceberg

Rapporteur calls for defossilization of economies and urgent reparations to avert ‘catastrophic’ rights and climate harms

Extreme heat ‘the new normal’, says UN chief, as authorities across the continent issue health warnings

Economic assumptions about risks of the climate crisis are no longer relevant, says the communications expert Genevieve Guenther

For more than three decades, Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre has warned that deforestation of the Amazon could push this globally important ecosystem past the point of no return. Working first at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research and more recently at the University of São Paulo, he is a global authority on tropical forests and how they could be restored.

The Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura is chair of a panel of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s leading natural scientists. For many decades, his speciality has been corals, but he has warned that the next generation may not see their glory because so many reefs are now “flickering out across the world”.

The world has been too optimistic about the risk to humanity and planet – but devastation can still be avoided, says Timothy Lenton

Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend

A subreddit tracking apocalyptic news in a calm, logical way comforts users who believe the end The threat of nuclear war, genocide in Gaza, ChatGPT reducing human cognitive ability, another summer of record heat. Every day brings a torrent of unimaginable horror. It used to be weeks between disasters, now we’re lucky to get hours.

Pourquoi la guerre nucléaire, et non la crise climatique, est la plus grande menace qui pèse sur l’humanité, selon Mark Lynas Mark Lynas a passé des décennies à faire pression pour que l’on agisse sur les émissions de gaz à effet de serre, mais il affirme aujourd’hui que la guerre nucléaire est une menace encore plus grande.

Iran’s parliament approved a measure to close the vital global trade route, through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through daily

New data from Nasa has revealed a dramatic rise in the intensity of weather events such as droughts and floods over the past five years.The steepness of the rise was not foreseen. The researchers say they are amazed and alarmed by the latest figures from the watchful eye of Nasa’s Grace satellite, which tracks environmental changes in the planet.

When a small Swedish town discovered their drinking water contained extremely high levels of Pfas, they had no idea what it would mean for their health and their children’s future

False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised

Les scientifiques ont déclaré aujourd’hui que les océans de la planète sont en plus mauvaise santé qu’on ne le pensait, tout en avertissant qu’une mesure clé montre que nous « manquons de temps » pour protéger les écosystèmes marins. L’acidification des océans, souvent appelée le « jumeau maléfique » de la crise climatique, est causée par l’absorption rapide du dioxyde de carbone par les océans, où il réagit avec les molécules d’eau, entraînant une baisse du pH de l’eau de mer. Elle endommage les récifs coralliens et d’autres habitats océaniques et, dans les cas extrêmes, peut dissoudre les coquilles des créatures marines.

Breaching threshold would ramp up catastrophic weather events, further increasing human suffering

Mark Lynas has spent decades pushing for action on climate emissions but now says nuclear war is even greater threat Climate breakdown is usually held up as the biggest, most urgent threat humans pose to the future of the planet today. But what if there was another, greater, human-made threat that could snuff out not only human civilisation, but practically the entire biosphere, in the blink of an eye?

Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating – and experts says these are tip of the iceberg

Exclusive: Climate.gov, which supports public education on climate science, will soon no longer publish new contentA major US government website supporting public education on climate science looks likely to be shuttered after almost all of its staff were fired, the Guardian has learned.

There’s frustration among researchers that falling pH levels in seas around the globe are not being taken seriously enough, and that until the buildup of CO2 is addressed, the consequences for marine life will be devastating

Ocean acidification has already crossed a crucial threshold for planetary health, scientists say in unexpected finding

La pandémie et les lois sévères ont étouffé les mouvements climatiques tels que nous les connaissions. Préparez-vous à un nouveau type d’action. […] Le mouvement a remporté des victoires impressionnantes. Sa première exigence, « dire la vérité », a été essentiellement honorée lorsque le Royaume-Uni est devenu le premier pays au monde à déclarer officiellement une urgence climatique, quelques jours après la fin de la rébellion d’avril. Le mouvement a également suscité un sentiment d’urgence parmi le public.

A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

On 21 April 2019, I was on Waterloo Bridge in London with my younger siblings. Around us were planters full of flowers where there were once cars, and people singing. This was the spring iteration of Extinction Rebellion, when four bridges in London were held by protesters. My siblings, then 14, had been going out on school strike inspired by Greta Thunberg, and wanted to see her speak.

Toxic pollution from wildfires has infiltrated the homes of more than a billion people a year over the last two decades, according to new research. The climate crisis is driving up the risk of wildfires by increasing heatwaves and droughts, making the issue of wildfire smoke a “pressing global issue”, scientists said.

Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes. The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study.

The faces are different, but it’s the same authoritarianism. Keir Starmer’s team might not look or sound like Donald Trump’s, but its policies on protest and dissent are chillingly similar. So is the reason: coordinated global lobbying by the rich and powerful, fronted by rightwing junktanks.

Temperatures south Asians dread each year arrive early as experts talk of ever shorter transition to summer-like heat

Une majorité silencieuse de la population mondiale souhaite une action climatique plus forte. Il est temps de se réveiller. Environ 89 % des citoyens souhaitent que leurs gouvernements fassent davantage pour lutter contre la crise climatique, mais ils ne savent pas qu’ils constituent la majorité. Le Guardian s’associe à des dizaines de rédactions du monde entier pour lancer le projet 89 % et mettre en évidence le fait que la grande majorité de la population mondiale souhaite une action en faveur du climat.

Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world – between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies – want their governments to take stronger climate action.

Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility. The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online [...] The report recommended that if global red meat eating was cut by 50%, the “planetary health diet” would provide nutritious food to all while tackling the harms caused by animal agriculture, which accounts for over 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. It suggested individuals – particularly in wealthy countries – should increase their consumption of nuts, pulses and other plant-based foods while cutting meat and sugar from their diets.

Greenpeace lost – not because it did something wrong but because it was denied a fair trial The stunning $667m verdict against Greenpeace last week is a direct attack on the climate movement, Indigenous peoples and the first amendment. The North Dakota case is so deeply flawed – at its core, the trial was really about crushing dissent – that I believe there is a good chance it will be reversed on appeal and ultimately backfire against the Energy Transfer pipeline company.

Researchers say Aardvark Weather uses thousands of times less computing power and is much faster than current systemsA single researcher with a desktop computer will be able to deliver accurate weather forecasts using a new AI weather prediction approach that is tens of times faster and uses thousands of times less computing power than conventional systems.

Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trials

Injecting pollutants into the atmosphere to reflect the sun would be extremely dangerous, but the UK is funding field trials

His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London. For the past three and a half weeks, lawyers for Shell have argued at the high court that their client cannot be held responsible for an environmental catastrophe in Ogale, which has suffered from decades of spills and pollution from oil extraction.

Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US. The president, in an executive order, has demanded an expansion in tree cutting across 280m acres (113m hectares) of national forests and other public lands, claiming that “heavy-handed federal policies” have made America reliant on foreign imports of timber.

Donald Trump’s administration is to reconsider the official finding that greenhouse gases are harmful to public health, a move that threatens to rip apart the foundation of the US’s climate laws, amid a stunning barrage of actions to weaken or repeal a host of pollution limits upon power plants, cars and waterways.

As fossil fuel interests attack climate accountability litigation, environmental advocates have sounded a new warning that they are pursuing a path that would destroy all future prospects for such cases. Nearly 200 advocacy groups have urged Democratic representatives to “proactively and affirmatively” reject potential industry attempts to obtain immunity from litigation.

Tougher laws said to be inspiring clandestine attacks on the ‘property and machinery’ of the fossil fuel economy

Exclusive: Medics more sleep deprived now than during Covid crisis amid staff shortages and surging demand

JD Vance was supposed to be the inconsequential vice-president. But his starring role in Friday’s blowup between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy – where he played a cross between Trump’s bulldog and a tech bro Iago – may mark the moment that the postwar alliance between Europe and the US finally collapsed.

The tiny former Soviet republic’s determination not to be cowed by the Kremlin could provide a template for the west on how to hold back the tide of subversion and corruption

US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety

Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil

Concerns raised as $10bn Bezos Earth Fund halts funding for Science Based Targets initiative, which monitors companies’ decarbonisation

Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’

Elon Musk has achieved astonishing power in Trump’s administration – and spent the weekend wielding it

Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree

Scientists say unusually mild temperatures linked to low-pressure system over Iceland directing strong flow of warm air towards north pole

The exponential rise in microplastic pollution over the past 50 years may be reflected in increasing contamination in human brains, according to a new study. It found a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024. The researchers also found the tiny particles in liver and kidney samples.

A panel of international scientists has moved their symbolic “Doomsday Clock” closer to midnight than ever before, citing Russian nuclear threats amid its invasion of Ukraine, tensions in other world hotspots, military applications of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis as factors underlying the risks of global catastrophe.

Forest service website among many sites affected as agencies scramble to comply with president’s orders

In 1919, at the height of a global crisis that resulted from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, the devastation of the first world war, and the collapse of Europe’s great continental empires, Irish writer William Butler Yeats penned his famed warning to humanity, mourning the end of the old world: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”