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

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

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”.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The world’s oceans have been set to simmer, and the heat is being cranked up. Last year saw the hottest ocean temperatures in recorded history, the sixth consecutive year that this record has been broken, according to new research.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

n the UK, when climate activists want to block a road, they sit down on it. When their fellow activists in France want to do the same, they build a wall across one side, and set the other side on fire. As Extinction Rebellion drew tens of thousands to their peaceful “Big One” protests in London last month, in the south of France 8,500 environmental protesters occupied the road from Toulouse to the town of Castres.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The economic damage wrought by climate change is six times worse than previously thought, with global heating set to shrink wealth at a rate consistent with the level of financial losses of a continuing permanent war, research has found. A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product (GDP), the researchers found, a far higher estimate than that of previous analyses.

The climate science maverick believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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,”

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.

The world could fall short of food by 2050 due to falling crop yields, insufficient investment in agricultural research and trade shocks, according to Joe Biden’s special envoy for food security, Dr Cary Fowler. Fowler, who is also known as the “father” of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a global store of seeds for the most significant crops, said studies by agricultural economists showed the world needed to produce 50-60% more food by 2050 in order to feed its growing population. But crop yields rates were projected to decline by between 3-12% as a result of global heating.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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”.

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..

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

A short glossary of the changes we’ve made to the Guardian’s style guide, for use by our journalists and editors when writing about the environment

European nations must end the repression and criminalisation of peaceful protest and urgently take action to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders has said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

We must tackle the environmental nightmare of 4x4s by taxing them off the road, says George Monbiot.

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.

Human-caused climate crisis brought soaring temperatures across Asia, from Gaza to Delhi to Manila

Winter downpours also made 20% wetter and will occur every three years without urgent carbon cuts, experts warn

‘Catastrophic’ global decline due to dams, mining, diverting water and pollution threatens humans and ecosystems, study warns

Outgoing special rapporteur David Boyd says ‘there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand how grave this is’

Climate scientists have told the Guardian they expect catastrophic levels of global heating. Here’s what that would mean for the planet

Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

Exclusive: Survey of hundreds of experts reveals harrowing picture of future, but they warn climate fight must not be abandoned

Editorial: Top experts believe global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. That frightening prediction must spur us to action

Unesco joint research dating back 15 years found violence and intimidation against about 750 reporters and 44 murders

Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed. Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.

Cost of environmental damage will be six times higher than price of limiting global heating to 2C, study finds

Marcus Decker dared to protest the climate crisis and was punished. Now he could be deported, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by 2030

Weak government climate policies violate fundamental human rights, the European court of human rights has ruled

If the anomaly does not stabilise by August, ‘the world will be in uncharted territory’, says climate expert

Environmental pledges are being shredded to please agribusiness and appease extremists. It’s a terrible mistake, says environmental writer Arthur Neslen

World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds

Dr Sarah Benn has long been concerned about the climate crisis, diligently recycling until she was “blue in the face”. But the rise of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion in 2019 inspired her and her husband to go further. “We thought: well, if we don’t do it then who else is going to?”

Dangers of wildfires, extreme weather and other factors outgrowing preparedness, European Environment Agency says

Activist accuses Sweden of being ‘very good at greenwashing’ as group sits outside building’s main entrance. Greta Thunberg has accused Sweden of being “very good at greenwashing” as she staged a protest along with about 50 other activists outside her home country’s parliament.

Scientists express concern over health impacts, with another study finding particles in arteries

In Munich I heard both Ukrainians and Alexei Navalny’s widow tell us why Putin must be defeated, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash

Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible

In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Rapid ocean warming and unusually hot winter days recorded as human-made global heating combines with El Niño

Companies knew for decades recycling was not viable but promoted it regardless, Center for Climate Integrity study finds

Exclusive: Meeting took place days after BP reported record profits while households were squeezed by high energy bills

Existing production destroys more value than it creates due to medical and environmental costs, researchers say

Total is 20% higher than thought and may have implications for collapse of globally important north Atlantic ocean currents The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought. Some scientists are concerned that this additional source of freshwater pouring into the north Atlantic might mean a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is closer to being triggered, with severe consequences for humanity.

New paper claims unless demand for resources is reduced, many other innovations are just a sticking plaster Record heat, record emissions, record fossil fuel consumption. One month out from Cop28, the world is further than ever from reaching its collective climate goals. At the root of all these problems, according to recent research, is the human “behavioural crisis”, a term coined by an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

Exclusive: First months of conflict produced more planet-warming gases than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in a year, study shows

James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s

Population likely to peak sooner and lower than expected with beneficial results – but environment is priority

Oil cartel warns ‘pressure may reach a tipping point’ and that ‘politically motivated campaigns put our prosperity’ at risk

Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms

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Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’

World Meteorological Organization says 2023 will be hottest year on record, leaving ‘trail of devastation and despair’

It’s obscene that the super-rich can criminalise protest, while they burn the world’s resources and remain untouched by the law, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Saudi Arabia is driving a huge global investment plan to create demand for its oil and gas in developing countries, an undercover investigation has revealed. Critics said the plan was designed to get countries “hooked on its harmful products”. Little was known about the oil demand sustainability programme (ODSP) but the investigation obtained detailed information on plans to drive up the use of fossil fuel-powered cars, buses and planes in Africa and elsewhere, as rich countries increasingly switch to clean energy.

Daily atmospheric carbon dioxide data from Hawaiian volcano more than double last decade’s annual average

Link to climate activism is seven times stronger for anger than it is for hope, say Norwegian researchers

Global fall averaged 4.2% between 2010 and 2022 but would have been far more if vehicle sizes stayed same

World Meteorological Organization sees ‘no end in sight to the rising trend’, largely driven by fossil fuel burning

Exclusive: UK climate campaign group Possible calls for ‘polluter pays’ tax based on vehicle size

When Rishi Sunak granted 27 new North Sea licences this week, he wasn’t thinking about the survival of the living world, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

UK has led the way, with countries across the continent making mass arrests, passing draconian new laws and labelling activists as eco-terrorists

The renowned US scientist’s new book examines 4bn years of climate history to conclude we are in a ‘fragile moment’ but there is still time to act

Guardian investigation finds 98% of Europeans breathing highly damaging polluted air linked to 400,000 deaths a year

Human activity has caused species groups to go extinct 35 times faster than they have over the past 500 years

Extreme weather is ‘smacking us in the face’ with worse to come, but a ‘tiny window’ of hope remains, say leading climate scientists

First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged

Techniques such as solar radiation management may have unintended consequences, scientists say

Ice-free summers inevitable even with sharp emissions cuts and likely to result in more extreme heatwaves and floods

State Farm will almost entirely stop issuing new policies in California – with climate-exacerbated wildfires and bad public policy a large reason why

Colombia was the deadliest country and a fifth of the 177 recorded killings took place in the Amazon rainforest, says Global Witness

Study highlights conflict between Washington’s claims of climate leadership and its fossil fuel growth plans

Forecast downturn still ‘nowhere near steep enough’ to limit temperature rise to 1.5C, says watchdog

The celebrated science broadcaster and environmental activist says we have to stop elevating the economy and politics over the state of our world

Heatwaves, wildfires and floods are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, leading climate scientists say

Cooperation is not only in the best interests of all countries, but is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet

Human-caused climate disruption and El Niño push temperature in mountains to 37C

Antarctica’s sea ice levels are plummeting as extreme weather events happen faster than scientists predicted

Exclusive: Long list of ‘sensitive’ topics for petrostate include oil and gas production, emissions and Yemen war crimes

A collapse would bring catastrophic climate impacts but scientists disagree over the new analysis

As the northern hemisphere burns, experts feel deep sadness – and resentment – while dreading what lies ahead this Australian summer

After hottest day ever, researchers say global heating may mean future of crop failures on land and ‘silent dying’ in the oceans

James Hansen, who testified to Congress on global heating in 1988, says world is approaching a ‘new climate frontier’

Three brush fires burning in rural areas across Riverside county, where 1,000 homes are under evacuation orders

Energy firms have made record profits by increasing production of oil and gas, far from their promises of rolling back emissions

Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Plutonium spike in Canadian lake sediments marks dawn of new epoch in which humanity dominates planet

Groundbreaking assessment of all life on Earth reveals humanity’s surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact

Letter: Scientists and academics including Prof Gesa Weyhenmeyer and Prof Will Steffen argue that we must discuss the threat of societal disruption in order to prepare for it

Applications to mine the seabed in our ocean commons can be made from 9 July, says Guy Standing, author of The Blue Commons

Many of those who drowned near Greece last month were escaping environmental crises in Pakistan, says author Fatima Bhutto

World Bank says subsidies costing as much as $23m a minute must be repurposed to fight climate crisis...

Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts

Countries in debt distress thrown financial lifeline but critics say measures fall short of what is needed

Emmanuel Macron’s government is at least doing the bare minimum to avert the planetary crisis – and putting the UK to shame, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Research allays fears that rapid scaling back of production would hit people’s savings and pensions hard

Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn

Taxing world’s wealthiest people could help poorer countries shift economies to low-carbon and recover from climate damage

As climate policy is weakened, extreme weather intensifies and more refugees are driven from their homes – and the cycle of hatred continues, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Hundreds of students and graduates vow not to work for ‘climate wreckers that insure those responsible for the climate crisis’

Examination of trees alive at the time shows three years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures and famine

Recycled and reused food contact plastics are “vectors for spreading chemicals of concern” because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds.

Going beyond climate disruption, the report by the Earth Commission group of scientists presents disturbing evidence that our planet faces growing crises of water availability, nutrient loading, ecosystem maintenance and aerosol pollution. These pose threats to the stability of life-support systems and worsen social equality.

World is on track for 2.7C and ‘phenomenal’ human suffering, scientists warn. Up to 1 billion people could choose to migrate to cooler places, the scientists said, although those areas remaining within the climate niche would still experience more frequent heatwaves and droughts. However, urgent action to lower carbon emissions and keep global temperature rise to 1.5C would cut the number of people pushed outside the climate niche by 80%, to 400 million.

Record sea surface temperatures suggest the Earth is headed for ‘uncharted territory’ in terms of sea level rise, coastal flooding and extreme weather

Higher rates slow the renewable energy transition and shield oil and gas producers from competition by low-carbon producers

Chemicals yield profit of about $4bn a year for the world’s biggest PFAS manufacturers, Sweden-based NGO found

Abusive, often violent tweets denying the climate emergency have become a barrage since Elon Musk acquired the platform, say UK experts

Fourth year in a row in which number of people facing food crises increased substantially

The 21-year-old Iraqi, who lived by a smoke-choked oilfield, died of cancer. His message must be heard, says journalist Jess Kelly

Recent leaks from oil sands tailings ponds have contaminated water, sowing mistrust among local First Nations people

Andreas Malm says he has no hope in ‘dominant classes’, and urges more radical approach to climate activism.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline makes a case for sabotage, but hope remains that we can build rather than destroy, says campaigner Natasha Walter

The politics of this new, extreme individualism will make collective responses to social crises impossible, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Those with higher levels of PFAS in their blood had 40% lower chance of conceiving within a year of trying

Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth

Since 1992, the IPCC has highlighted rising greenhouse gases, marking their ‘widespread and unprecedented’ impacts by 2014

UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

An unprecedented rise in plastic pollution has been uncovered by scientists, who have calculated that more than 170tn plastic particles are afloat in the oceans. They have called for a reduction in the production of plastics, warning that “cleanup is futile” if they continue to be pumped into the environment at the current rate.

Campaigners say Rosebank, with a potential yield of 500m barrels, would seriously undermine legal commitment to net zero

An investigation by conservationists has found evidence that deep-seabed mining of rare minerals could cause “extensive and irreversible” damage to the planet.The report, to be published on Monday by the international wildlife charity Fauna & Flora, adds to the growing controversy that surrounds proposals to sweep the ocean floor of rare minerals that include cobalt, manganese and nickel. Mining companies want to exploit these deposits – which are crucial to the alternative energy sector – because land supplies are running low, they say.

Six KCs among more than 120 mostly English lawyers to sign pledge not to act for fossil fuel interests

Avian flu has decimated the marine creatures on the country’s Pacific coastline and scientists fear it could be jumping from mammal to mammal

Pie-in-the-sky fantasies of carbon capture and geoengineering are a way for decision-makers to delay taking real action

I cannot support laws that defend those who destroy the planet, and criminalise those who try to protect it, says Jolyon Maugham KC

Misguided policies are hurting the poorest in society; our focus should be on reducing inequality not increasing GDP

IPCC report says only swift and drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to world

Vast releases of gas, along with future ‘methane bombs’, represent huge threat – but curbing emissions would rapidly reduce global heating

With the continent holding enough ice to raise sea levels by many metres if it was to melt, polar scientists are scrambling for answers

Research finds waste flushed down toilets and sent to sewage plants probably responsible for significant source of water pollution

The excessive use of phosphorus is depleting reserves vital to global food production, while also adding to the climate crisis

Former UN secretary general calls for rich countries to honour promises made to the developing world after years of failure

Guardian analysis of data in light of Ohio train derailment shows accidental releases are happening consistently

Last year, 3 million were displaced in the US. Millions more will follow – and neither they, the government or the housing market are ready

It’s not ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ if campaigners cannot explain their motivations to a jury, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

The steady destruction of wildlife can suddenly tip over into total ecosystem collapse, scientists studying the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history have found. Many scientists think the huge current losses of biodiversity are the start of a new mass extinction. But the new research shows total ecosystem collapse is “inevitable”, if the losses are not reversed, the scientists said.

Major mapping project reveals PFAS have been found at high levels at thousands of sites

We are a species that is superb at killing, says veteran oceanographer, who calls for us to stop treating fish like crops and give them the respect they deserve

The world’s reliance on hi-tech capitalist solutions to the climate and ecological crises is perpetuating racism, the outgoing UN racism rapporteur has warned. Green solutions including electric cars, renewable energy and the rewilding of vast tracts of land are being implemented at the expense of racially and ethnically marginalised groups and Indigenous peoples, Tendayi Achiume told the Guardian in an interview.

People in developing countries are feeling increasingly angry and “victimised” by the climate crisis, the US climate envoy John Kerry has warned, and rich countries must respond urgently. “I’ve been chronicling the increased frustration and anger of island states and vulnerable countries and small African nations and others around the world that feel victimised by the fact that they are a minuscule component of emissions,” he said. “And yet [they are] paying a very high price. Seventeen of the 20 most affected countries in the world, by the climate crisis, are in Africa, and yet 48 sub-Saharan countries total 0.55% of all emissions.”

Past governments blamed the growing of coca – the base component of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise

A train derailed and flooded a town with cancer-causing chemicals. But something larger, and more troubling, is at work.

The world is at risk of descending into a climate “doom loop”, a thinktank report has warned. It said simply coping with the escalating impacts of the climate crisis could draw resources and focus away from the efforts to slash carbon emissions, making the situation even worse.

Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planet

Researchers found that exceeding the 2C increase has a 50% chance of happening by mid-century

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund threatens to vote against boards on firms it holds investments with over lax climate and social targets

Dozens of people have been imprisoned, as changes in the law are used to curb protest. Is it part of a turn towards a more authoritarian state?

Letters: I risked prison to stand up against an system that will lead to ecological and societal collapse – we must look for alternative economic models, writes Zoe Cohen

Claimants ClientEarth say the oil company’s plan puts the company at financial risk as the world transitions to clean energy, The directors of oil major Shell are being personally sued over their climate strategy, which the claimants say is inadequate to meet climate targets and puts the company at risk as the world switches to clean energy.

Black Mountains College in Wales aims to prepare students for life during a planetary emergency. The college is this year offering a radical new degree course designed to prepare students for a career in times of climate breakdown, and build a generation with the innovative skills and ideas required to tackle the crisis.

Canadian author and professor of climate justice cautiously hails loss and damage agreements at Cop27. " I think the most important thing is to just find other people. Trying to think through this by yourself is a recipe for feeling like a failure and getting dispirited very, very quickly. The benefit of being part of a broader movement is knowing that some people are doing some things, and other people are doing other things, and nobody has to do everything."

The fallout when the industry fails to act is still smaller than the rewards for pumping out more pollution

An increase in the pace at which sea levels are rising threatens “a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale”, the UN secretary general has warned. The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise faster than for 3,000 years, bringing a “torrent of trouble” to almost a billion people, from London to Los Angeles and Bangkok to Buenos Aires, António Guterres said on Tuesday. Some nations could cease to exist, drowned under the waves, he said.

It beggars belief that the UN thought it a good idea to allow an authoritarian petro-state to host the already compromised summit, says Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of climate hazards

Carbon credits and offsets do not have a great record but the funds they raise are a vital part in fight against deforestation

Carbon offsets can help achieve emissions goals, some experts argue, while others say they are actively dangerous

Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating

Atlanta wants to build a police training facility in a forested area amid community opposition

More than 40% of land vertebrates will be threatened by extreme heat by the end of the century under a high emissions scenario, with freak temperatures once regarded as rare likely to become the norm, new research warns. Reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals are being exposed to extreme heat events of increasing frequency, duration and intensity, as a result of human-driven global heating. This poses a substantial threat to the planet’s biodiversity, a new study warns. Under a high emissions scenario of 4.4C warming, 41% of land vertebrates will experience extreme thermal events by 2099, according to the paper, published in Nature.

Several US states say news that Exxon scientists predicted global heating accurately strengthens their lawsuits against company

Three “super-tipping points” for climate action could trigger a cascade of decarbonisation across the global economy, according to a report. Relatively small policy interventions on electric cars, plant-based alternatives to meat and green fertilisers would lead to unstoppable growth in those sectors, the experts said. But the boost this would give to battery and hydrogen production would mean crucial knock-on benefits for other sectors including energy storage and aviation.

Industry funds ‘grassroots’ resistance to tougher rules while touting green credentials, study shows

Group says forcing polluters to store carbon dioxide underground is needed to help world reach net zero

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.

Over the past 12 months, courts from Indonesia to Australia have made groundbreaking rulings that blocked polluting power plants and denounced the human rights violations of the climate crisis. But 2023 could be even more important, with hearings and judgments across the world poised to throw light on the worst perpetrators, give victims a voice and force recalcitrant governments and companies into

Humanity is now a ‘geological superpower’ and declaring a new epoch is critical to tackling its impact, scientists say

The number of insects splattered on vehicle number plates in Britain fell by 64% between 2004 and 2022, according to a survey. Each summer citizen scientists record the number of insect splats on their number plates on an app after a journey. The latest Bugs Matter report, produced by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, found another drop in 2022 compared with 2021, with the long-term decrease jumping by five percentage points.

Overall, however, the climate crisis is bleaker than it has ever been. In October, a slew of reports laid bare how close the planet had neared to irreversible climate breakdown, with one UN study stating there was “no credible pathway in place to 1.5C”, the internationally agreed limit for global heating, and that progress on cutting carbon emissions was “woefully inadequate”.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has earned Norway billions – and caused controversy. Thanks to oil and gas reserves in the waters off its coast, Norway is not only extremely rich but getting richer still. Already the World Bank’s seventh wealthiest country by GDP per capita at the start of this year, the resource-rich Scandinavian country’s profits have ballooned to record levels over the last 12 months, as prices on the energy markets tripled due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Norway replaced bellicose Moscow as Europe’s largest supplier of gas.

Scientists are to pick a location that sums up the current Anthropocene epoch when Homo sapiens made its mark

The climate protest group Extinction Rebellion is shifting tactics from disruptions such as smashing windows and glueing themselves to public places in 2023, it has announced. A new year resolution to “prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks”, was spelled out in a 1 January statement titled “We quit”, which said “constantly evolving tactics is a necessary approach”.

A beauty company has appointed a director to represent nature on its board, giving the natural world a legal say in its business strategy. Faith In Nature, which sells soap and haircare products, as well as household cleaners and shampoo for dogs, says it is the first company in the world to give nature a formal vote on corporate decisions that might affect it

Planned drilling projects across US land and waters will release 140bn metric tons of planet-heating gases if fully realised, an analysis shared with the Guardian has found. The study, to be published in the Energy Policy journal this month, found emissions from these oil and gas “carbon bomb” projects were four times larger than all of the planet-heating gases expelled globally each year, placing the world on track for disastrous climate change.

Energy watchdog’s Fatih Birol says shift away from coal in key regions needs to be made a global priority

Governments must close gap between net zero rhetoric and reality, says International Energy Agency head

Soaring temperatures in subcontinent, which have caused widespread suffering, would be extraordinarily rare without global heating

On Thursday night the Danish government voted in favour of the plans to cancel the country’s next North Sea oil and gas licensing round, 80 years after it first began exploring its hydrocarbon reserves. Denmark’s 55 existing oil and gas platforms, scattered across 20 oil and gas fields, will be allowed to continue extracting fossil fuels but the milestone decision to end the hunt for new reserves in the ageing basin will guarantee an end to Denmark’s fossil fuel production.

Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of heating, with severe long-term effects. The new research examined the interactions between ice sheets in West Antarctica, Greenland, the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream and the Amazon rainforest. The scientists carried out 3m computer simulations and found domino effects in a third of them, even when temperature rises were below 2C, the upper limit of the Paris agreement.

Most expensive storm cost $100bn while deadliest floods killed 1,700 and displaced 7 million, report finds

It’s not just indifference. It’s an active, and deadly, cavalier attitude towards the lives of others: an example other nations follow

More than two decades on from the protocol, country shows enthusiasm for nuclear restarts over renewables

We know that the easiest way for a politician to secure power is to appease those who already possess it, those whose power transcends elections: the oil barons, the media barons, the corporations and financial markets. We know that this power appoints the worst possible people at the worst possible time. We know how, as elderly billionaires seek to grab ever more of the life that slips from them, they create a death cult....

A climate protester who blocked a lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge has been sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months, with human rights advocates labelling the punishment “disproportionate”.

For decades fossil fuel majors tried to fight the consensus – just as big tobacco once disputed that smoking kills.

Fossil fuels, fisheries and farming: the world’s most destructive industries are protected – and subsidised – by governments

All students at the University of Barcelona will have to take a mandatory course on the climate crisis after the establishment agreed to meet the demands of activists conducting a sit-in occupation. The announcement came after a seven-day occupation by a group from the anti-fossil fuel organisation End Fossil Barcelona.

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on. According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.

The destruction of global forests slowed in 2021 but the vital climate goal of ending deforestation by 2030 will still be missed without urgent action, according to an assessment. The area razed in 2021 fell by 6.3% after progress in some countries, notably Indonesia. But almost 7m hectares were lost and the destruction of the most carbon- and biodiversity-rich tropical rainforests fell by only 3%. The CO2 emissions resulting from the lost trees were equivalent to the emissions of the entire European Union plus Japan.

Rich countries must urgently develop a plan to assist countries suffering the ravages of extreme weather, as failure to take early action on the climate crisis has left them increasingly vulnerable, developing nations have said. The V20 – made up of the 20 vulnerable countries facing the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and least able to cope with them – set out its proposals on Monday for how rich countries should pay for the “loss and damage” caused by the climate crisis.

The EU is on track to break a promise to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 made due to a “policy vacuum” on livestock emissions, a report has warned.Most of Europe’s methane emissions come from agriculture – particularly livestock – but the EU has avoided using policy levers such as its €387bn common agricultural policy to directly tackle the problem

The sediments preserved in these cliffs in Devon were laid down in the early Triassic period, just after the greatest mass extinction in the history of multicellular life that brought the Permian period to an end 252m years ago. Around 90% of species died, and fish and four-footed animals were more or less exterminated between 30 degrees north of the equator and 40 degrees south.

Scientists warn world ‘is heading in wrong direction’ amid rise in nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane.Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases have reached record highs, according to a study by the World Meteorological Organization, which scientists say means the world is “heading in the wrong direction”.

Materials put into domestic compost are failing to disintegrate after six months – the only solution is to use less. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research.

Methane emissions in the UK could be cut by more than 40% by 2030 with a raft of inexpensive policies, according to an environmental thinktank. The government has pledged to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the global heating power of CO2, by at least 30% by 2030. The move was trumpeted by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister after the UK joined more than 100 other countries to make the pledge at Cop26 in Glasgow.

Vast carbon store may be close to point where it could flip from absorbing CO2 to releasing it, research shows. The Congo peatlands are a huge carbon “timebomb” that could be triggered by the climate crisis, research has shown.

A dramatic increase in funding for climate adaptation is needed to save millions of lives from “climate carnage”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said. Climate adaptation includes preparing defences against rising floods, shelters against intensifying cyclones and emergency plans to protect people during worsening heatwaves and droughts. Guterres said only a small fraction of the required finance was given by rich nations to protect vulnerable people.

From the seemingly inexorable increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the rapid growth in green energy

Africa is the continent most vulnerable to the climate crisis, but with the right support at Cop27 it can build a stronger, greener future

Healthy teenagers are more prone to irregular heartbeats after breathing in fine particulate air pollution, according to the first major study of its impact on otherwise healthy young individuals. The findings have raised concern among researchers because heart arrhythmias, which can increase the risk of heart disease and sudden cardiac death, appear to be triggered even when air pollution is within common air quality limits.

Filter-feeding whales are consuming millions of particles of microplastic pollution a day, according to a study, making them the largest consumers of plastic waste on the planet. The central estimate for blue whales was 10m pieces a day, meaning more than 1bn pieces could be ingested over a three- to four-month feeding season. The weight of plastic consumed over the season was estimated at between 230kg and 4 tonnes.

António Guterres says gap between developed world and poorer countries is biggest issue facing Cop27 talks

António Guterres is heading to Cop27 for what is likely to be another blistering attack on complacency and foot-dragging

As part of a major reform of the EU’s anti-pollution legislation, the European Commission said it planned to tighten air quality standards, including on one of the most dangerous pollutants, fine particulate matter. Water standards are also going to be stricter, with 25 substances added to a control list, such as the category of PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”), the substance Bisphenol A, pesticides including glyphosate, and antibiotics.

Key UN reports published in last two days warn urgent and collective action needed – as oil firms report astronomical profits The climate crisis has reached a “really bleak moment”, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has said, after a slew of major reports laid bare how close the planet is to catastrophe.

Joint committee on national security strategy criticises ‘severe dereliction of duty’ by ministers as threat grows

Failure to cut carbon emissions means ‘rapid transformation of societies’ is only option to limit impacts, report says

A large majority of the UK public supports nonviolent direct action to protect the environment, according to an opinion poll. People also strongly backed solar power on farmland and opposed fracking. The poll indicates the unpopularity of a recent swathe of government policies, with more than twice as many people saying they trusted Labour to protect the environment as said they trusted the Conservatives.

Lost nets, lines and hooks trap wildlife for years as they float in the ocean, sink to the bottom or are washed ashore

Industry groups representing some of the world’s largest companies are “opposed to almost all major biodiversity-relevant policies” and are lobbying to block them, according to a new report. Researchers found that 89% of engagement by leading industry associations in Europe and the US is designed to delay, dilute and block progress on tackling the biodiversity crisis, which scientists say is as serious as the climate emergency.

Governments and businesses failing to change fast enough, says United in Science report, as weather gets increasingly extreme. Despite intensifying warnings in recent years, governments and businesses have not been changing fast enough, according to the United in Science report published on Tuesday. The consequences are already being seen in increasingly extreme weather around the world, and we are in danger of provoking “tipping points” in the climate system that will mean more rapid and in some cases irreversible shifts.

Denmark ‘gets ball rolling’ at UN ahead of protests as poor nations call for greater collective commitment. Youth groups in Africa are preparing to embark on a series of climate demonstrations on Friday to highlight the problem of “loss and damage” to poor countries blighted by climate breakdown, as only one rich country has so far stepped up with funding for the problem.

The amount of heat accumulating in the ocean is accelerating and penetrating ever deeper, with widespread effects on extreme weather events and marine life, according to a new scientific review.

Concerns about climate change shrank across the world last year, with fewer than half of those questioned in a new survey believing it posed a “very serious threat” to their countries over the next 20 years.

Some two dozen climate liability suits have been making their way through the courts since 2015, bolstered by media investigations and attribution studies that are able to accurately pinpoint the precise contribution climate change has made to the damages inflicted by extreme weather events. A 2021 study in the journal Nature, for example, found that just over $8bn (£7bn) of the $62.7bn (£55.3bn) in damages caused by Superstorm Sandy across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is attributable to sea-level rise caused by climate change.

New coal power projects are becoming “effectively uninsurable” outside China because so many insurance companies have ruled out support for them, a report has found. Recent commitments to stop underwriting coal by prominent US insurers AIG and Travelers have brought the number of coal insurance exit policies to 41, according to the latest industry scorecard by the climate campaign Insure Our Future.

Billboards hijacked across Europe to highlight role of airline emissions in climate crisis

Governments may say they’re doing all they can to halt the climate crisis. Don’t fall for it – then we might still have time to turn things around ‘Stop setting things on fire’: nine great ideas to save the planet Greta Thunberg Greta Thunberg Sat 8 Oct 2022 09.00 BST Maybe it is the name that is the problem. Climate change. It doesn’t sound that bad. The word “change” resonates quite pleasantly in our restless world. No matter how fortunate we are, there is always room for the appealing possibility of improvement. Then there is the “climate” part. Again, it does not sound so bad. If you live in many of the high-emitting nations of the global north, the idea of a “changing climate” could well be interpreted as the very opposite of scary and dangerous. A changing world. A warming planet. What’s not to like?

I became a climate activist 16 years ago. Back then, not many people cared about climate change. The eye rolls were audible. Media coverage was scarce, and what little there was glibly included “both sides”. It was frustrating and tragic to see such a clear and present danger and to know that it was still mostly avoidable, yet ignored by society.

Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create, but like everything they do, it has unintended consequences

Campaigners say protesters arrested for blocking roads getting ‘lost in prison system’ while on remand. Speaking from inside the jail, he said: “The only good thing about my situation is that it seems to give an extra platform for my views. I spend most afternoons writing speeches and they have been read out all over the world – Italy, Sweden, Canada.”

The author and eminent climate scientist on the deniers’ new tactics and why positive change feels closer than it has done in 20 years

The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and almost 200 other health associations have made an unprecedented call for a global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. A call to action published on Wednesday, urges governments to agree a legally binding plan to phase out fossil fuel exploration and production, similar to the framework convention on tobacco, which was negotiated under the WHO’s auspices in 2003. “The modern addiction to fossil fuels is not just an act of environmental vandalism. From the health perspective, it is an act of self-sabotage,” said the WHO president, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Group says ‘climate disaster’ vehicles targeted in nine countries including the UK, France and Canada

The scientist who has borne the full brunt of attacks by climate change deniers, including death threats and accusations of misappropriating funds, is set to hit back.

Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change

As those most responsible for the crisis recede into history, our energy is better spent responding to the world we have created