Le Sable

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.

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.”

The researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would die each year as a result of “suboptimal temperatures” even under the most optimistic scenario for cutting planet-heating pollution. The hottest plausible scenario they considered showed a net increase of 80,000 temperature-related deaths a year.

Revealed: US climate denial group working with European far-right parties Representatives of Heartland Institute linking up with MEPs to campaign against environmental policies Helena Horton, Sam Bright and Clare Carlile Wed 22 Jan 2025 13.01 CET Last modified on Wed 22 Jan 2025 14.27 CET Climate science deniers from a US-based thinktank have been working with rightwing politicians in Europe to campaign against environmental policies, the Guardian can reveal. MEPs have been accused of “rolling out the red carpet for climate deniers” to give them a platform in the European parliament, amid warnings of a “revival of grotesque climate denialism”.

The world’s addiction to fossil fuels is a “Frankenstein’s monster sparing nothing and no one”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “Our fossil fuel addiction is a Frankenstein’s monster, sparing nothing and no one. All around us, we see clear signs that the monster has become master,”

The 29-year-old was arrested by City of London police after activists said they had cut the cables to insurance company offices in London, Leeds, Birmingham and Sheffield on Monday. In a press release, the group, which calls itself Shut the System, said it had targeted insurers “due to their critical role underpinning the fossil fuel economy through underwriting contracts and investments”.

As authorities declared 2024 the hottest on record, a key private sector climate alliance, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) abandoned a requirement that members be aligned to the Paris agreement. That was followed by a network of net zero asset managers suspending work, and deleting from its website its statement of commitments that members must adopt, after BlackRock, the biggest of them all, quit its ranks.

Shifting responsibility to consumers minimises the role of energy industry and policymakers, University of Sydney research suggests

Wildfires that blazed around the world in 2024 helped to drive a record annual leap in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, surprising scientists. The data shows humanity is moving yet deeper into a dangerous world of supercharged extreme weather.

Britain’s crackdown on climate protest is setting “a dangerous precedent” around the world and undermining democratic rights, the UK director of Human Rights Watch has said. In the UK “laws criminalising protests undermine democratic rights”, the NGO says in its latest annual world report, published on Thursday, adding that in the past year “the UK continued to crack down on and criminalise climate protests”.

he global economy could face 50% loss in gross domestic product (GDP) between 2070 and 2090 from the catastrophic shocks of climate change unless immediate action by political leaders is taken to decarbonise and restore nature, according to a new report The stark warning from risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) hugely increases the estimate of risk to global economic wellbeing from climate change impacts such as fires, flooding, droughts, temperature rises and nature breakdown.

Experts believe H5N1 bird flu belongs in a growing category of infectious diseases that can cause pandemics across many species. But there are ways to reduce the risks..

The multibillion-dollar chemicals company 3M told customers its firefighting foams were harmless and biodegradable when it knew they contained toxic substances so persistent they are now known as “forever chemicals” and banned in many countries including the UK, newly uncovered documents show.

British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism.

Thirteen of the ports with the highest supertanker traffic will be seriously damaged by just 1 metre of sea level rise, the analysis found. The researchers said two low-lying ports in Saudi Arabia – Ras Tanura and Yanbu – were particularly vulnerable. Both are operated by Aramco, the Saudi state oil firm, and 98% of the country’s oil exports leave via these ports.

Analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heatwaves, leaving millions prone to deadly temperatures

President formally files new plans under Paris agreement and hails ‘boldest climate agenda in American history’. Joe Biden has announced tougher targets on the US’s carbon dioxide emissions for the next decade, in a defiant final gesture intended as a “capstone” on his legacy on the climate. With just weeks to go before Donald Trump enters the White House, the Biden administration is formally filing new plans under the Paris agreement – the global climate treaty from which Trump has vowed to withdraw.

Hastened reviews of compounds as industry ramps up could increase pollution from likely toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency is quietly fast tracking approval of new PFAS “forever chemicals” for use by the semiconductor industry at the same time the agency is publicly touting increased scrutiny of new PFAS and other chemicals.

As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists swarmed a Washington venue last week, the packed halls have been permeated by an air of anxiety and even dread over a new Donald Trump presidency that might worsen what has been a bruising few years for science.

In this week’s Down To Earth newsletter: The global crackdown against climate activists and groups is clearly part of the fossil fuel industry’s strategy to crush dissent and keep burning the planet

Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections

Average global temperature in November was 1.62C above preindustrial levels, bringing average for the year to 1.60C. Data for November from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found the average global surface temperature for the month was 1.62C above the level before the mass burning of fossil fuels drove up global heating. With data for 11 months of 2024 now available, scientists said the average for the year is expected to be 1.60C, exceeding the record set in 2023 of 1.48C.

We are used to thinking about natural disasters as events confined in time and space: the direct impact in a certain location of an earthquake happens over minutes, a hurricane over hours. While they might be confined in geography, longitudinal studies can help us understand the full range of effects and what extra efforts might be needed to rebuild.

If despair is the most unforgivable sin, then hope is surely the most abused virtue. That observation feels particularly apposite as we enter the Cop season, that time of United Nations megaconferences at the end of every year, when national leaders feel obliged to convince us the future will be better, despite growing evidence to the contrary.

Oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf explains why Amoc breakdown could be catastrophic for both humans and marine life

Natural sinks of forests and peat were key to Finland’s ambitious target to be carbon neutral by 2035. But now, the land has started emitting more greenhouse gases than it stores

The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heating

Record emissions, temperatures and population mean more scientists are looking into possibility of societal collapse, report says

Climate activists opposed to the Mountain Valley pipeline were accused of breaking West Virginia’s new critical infrastructure law

In an interview from jail in Greenland with the AFP news agency, the anti-whaling activist said Tokyo has a vendetta against him.

The EU is being sued for failing to set ambitious climate targets in sectors that contribute more than half of the bloc’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The signs of weakening resilience raise concerns that the world’s greatest tropical forest – and biggest terrestrial carbon sink – is degrading towards a point of no return. It follows four supposedly “one-in-a-century” dry spells in less than 20 years, highlighting how a human-disrupted climate is putting unusually intense strains on trees and other plants, many of which are dying of dehydration.

Extreme heat affecting nearly 23m people across US south-west and pushing Texas’s electrical grid to the limit.

Coal and gas exports expected to remain roughly at current level until at least 2035 with 4.5% of emissions linked to Australia, report finds

UN says a global ‘backlash’ against climate action is being stoked by fossil fuel companies

Temperatures reach 45C in parts of the country and 225 people seek treatment for heatstroke

Campaigners receive longest ever sentences for non-violent protest after being convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance

As the climate crisis causes heavier and more frequent floods across the US, one in four small businesses are one disaster away from shutting down

Melting of ice is slowing planet’s rotation and could disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS

Warning after intensification of storm aided by unusually hot ocean waters in much of Beryl’s path. Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.

Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them

Economic growth allows the few to grow ever-wealthier. Ending poverty and environmental catastrophe demands fresh thinking

Small increase in temperature of intruding water could lead to very big increase in loss of ice, scientists say

Scientists warn of ‘scary’ feedback loop in which fires create more heating, which causes more fires worldwide

The contaminants have also recently been found in testes and semen amid concerns about falling male fertility

This year elections are taking place across the globe, covering almost half of the world’s population. It is also likely to be, yet again, the hottest year recorded as the climate crisis intensifies. The Guardian asked young climate activists around the world what they want from the elections and whether politics is working in the fight to halt global heating.

Sudden cut in pollution in 2020 meant less shade from sun and was ‘substantial’ factor in record surface temperatures in 2023, study finds