Environment news

• The environment was meant to be ‘back on the priority list’ under Labor. Instead, we’ve seen a familiar story | Adam Morton

  16-09-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  There have been moments of modest progress, but the Albanese government has not lived up to its early rhetoricGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIt wasn’t supposed to be like this. Back in the heady new government days of July 2022, Tanya Plibersek told the National Press Club that change was coming for environmental protection in Australia after a decade of disaster and neglect.Releasing the five-yearly state of the environment report, which the previous Coalition
  
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• Climate breakdown will hit global growth by a third, say central banks

  08-11-2024 13:41 via theguardian.com
  
  New modelling finds risk to global economies much worse than previously thought, but group of central banks says even this may be an underestimateThe physical shocks caused by climate breakdown will hit global economic growth by a third, according to a risk assessment by a network of central banks.The rise in the estimated hit to the world’s economies as a result of the shocks from flooding, droughts, temperature rises, and mitigating and adapting to extreme weather was the result of new c
  
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• Tax changes in budget last straw for UK farmers after ‘years of being squeezed’

  08-11-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Farmers’ union to bring 1,800 members to Westminster in protest, but some say mega-rich landowners are the problemIn the next few weeks tractors full of angry farmers could roll through the stately streets of Westminster. They have had enough, they say. The change to inheritance tax in the government’s budget last week was a blow – but it was also the most recent of a long series of blows. This is, apparently, as much as they can take.Rachel Reeves stirred up anger when she mad
  
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• I’m a farmer – and I’m glad to see tax loopholes closing for cynical investor landowners | Guy Singh-Watson

  08-11-2024 13:00 via theguardian.com
  
  It could have been better designed, but Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tweak will help farmers with mud on their bootsShould multimillionaire landowners benefit from a tax break designed to help small family farms pass down their land to their children? This is a hotly contested question, given last week’s budget. Labour has reintroduced 20% inheritance tax for farms that are valued at more than £1m, meaning the children of farmers will no longer inherit land tax-free. Granted, 20
  
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• Houseplant of the week: resurrection plant

  08-11-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  This marvel of nature can survive dehydration for years – but watering it will reveal beautiful green leavesWhy will I love it?The fascinating resurrection plant (Selaginella lepidophylla) is a marvel of nature that can survive extreme dehydration for years by curling into a seemingly lifeless brown, dry ball, only to “resurrect” itself and turn green again when exposed to water.Light or shade?It thrives in bright, indirect light. Continue reading...
  
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• Week in wildlife in pictures: a strolling pelican, a venomous newt and a psychedelic swamphen

  08-11-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
  
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• Odour of oil and return of Trump hang heavy over Cop29 in Baku

  08-11-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Prospects of strong outcome appear dim but there is hope the talks will address pressing issue of climate financeMore than 100 heads of state and government are expected to land in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, over the next few days and the first thing they are likely to notice is the smell of oil. The odour hangs heavy in the air, evidence of the abundance of fossil fuels in this small country on the shores of the Caspian Sea.Flaring from refineries lights up the night sky, and the city is
  
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• Britons need greener travel options to meet net zero target

  08-11-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Government must take urgent steps to change UK travel behaviour if carbon dioxide reduction goals are to be metEurope-wide research has shown Britons are more willing than most Europeans to reduce their use of cars and aeroplanes – an essential requirement if carbon dioxide reduction targets are to be met.During the Covid pandemic, consumption of petrol, diesel and paraffin plummeted as government restrictions forced people to stay at home – the UK had the third-largest reduction aft
  
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• ‘Essential to act now’ to prevent chaotic climate breakdown, warns UN chief

  08-11-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  On the eve of Cop29 in Baku, António Guterres says dangers are underestimated as irreversible tipping points nearThe world is still underestimating the risk of catastrophic climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse, the UN secretary general has warned in the run-up to Cop29, acknowledging that the rise in global heating is on course to soar past 1.5C (2.7F) over pre-industrial levels in the coming years.Humanity is approaching potentially irreversible tipping points such as the collapse of
  
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• ‘A total waste of time’: why Papua New Guinea pulled out of Cop29 and why climate advocates are worried

  08-11-2024 05:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Country’s foreign minister says UN climate summits have produced ‘no results’ as Pacific nation takes the rare step of withdrawing from upcoming Cop29Papua New Guinea’s decision to pull out of an upcoming UN global climate summit due to frustration over “empty promises and inaction” has prompted concern from climate advocates, who fear the move will isolate the Pacific nation and put vital funding at risk.Prime minister James Marape announced in August the cou
  
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• ‘The first thing I did was poke it’: Canada beach blobs mystery solved by chemists

  07-11-2024 21:26 via theguardian.com
  Newfoundland Memorial Univeristy team find white masses are likely material used to clean pipes in oil industryWhen the chemist Chris Kozak finally got his hands on a sample of the mysterious blobs that recently washed up on the shores of Newfoundland’s beaches, Project Unknown Glob officially began.At his disposal, Kozak and a team of graduate students had the “gorgeous” new science building and “world class facilities” of Newfoundland’s Memorial University t
  
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• Ben Jennings on Trump’s victory and a bleak outlook for the planet – cartoon

  07-11-2024 18:45 via theguardian.com
  
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• Plastic pollution is changing entire Earth system, scientists find

  07-11-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Pollution is affecting the climate, biodiversity, ecosystems, ocean acidification and human health, according to analysisPlastic pollution is changing the processes of the entire Earth system, exacerbating climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and the use of freshwater and land, according to scientific analysis.Plastic must not be treated as a waste problem alone, the authors said, but as a product that poses harm to ecosystems and human health. Continue reading...
  
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• Branching out: the Sydney street libraries where neighbours swap plants instead of books

  07-11-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Members of the community exchange seeds, cuttings and greenery – and leave with a sense of joyGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailTri-coloured frangipani cuttings. A blueberry plant. Daisies and begonias, oregano and basil. And a lawn edger that was snapped up in a jiffy.These are just some of the plants and gardening paraphernalia sitting on an arched shelf at the Carshalton St Plant Exchange in Croydon Park, in Sydney’s inner west; all are free for neighbours and passersby.
  
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• Branching out: the street libraries where neighbours swap plants instead of books

  07-11-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  At these Sydney plant libraries, members of the community exchange seeds, cuttings and greenery – and leave with a sense of joyGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailTri-coloured frangipani cuttings. A blueberry plant. Daisies and begonias, oregano and basil. And a lawn edger that was snapped up in a jiffy.These are just some of the plants and gardening paraphernalia sitting on an arched shelf at the Carshalton St Plant Exchange in Croydon Park, in Sydney’s inner west; all are fr
  
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• Trump voters want a revolution. It’s time for progressives to offer their own | George Monbiot

  07-11-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  People have never been swayed by ‘rational debate’. Only a genuine change in the way we do politics can prevent the march of the rightWe were losing slowly. Now we are losing quickly. Democracy, accountability, human rights, social justice – all were rolling backwards as money swarmed our politics. Above all, our life-support systems – the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, ice and snow – have been hammered and hammered, regardless of who is in power. Don
  
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• Trump has pledged to wage war on planet Earth – and it will take a progressive revolution to stop him | George Monbiot

  07-11-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Voters have never been swayed by ‘rational debate’. Only a genuine change in the way we do politics can prevent the march of the rightWe were losing slowly. Now we are losing quickly. Democracy, accountability, human rights, social justice – all were rolling backwards as money swarmed our politics. Above all, our life-support systems – the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, ice and snow – have been hammered and hammered, regardless of who is in power. Don
  
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• Dining across the divide: ‘The only thing we agreed on was our mutual dislike of Boris Johnson’

  07-11-2024 13:30 via theguardian.com
  One supports Zionism and the other is horrified by what is happening in Gaza. Could moving on to the climate crisis bring them closer together?Maria, 53, ManchesterOccupation Recruitment director Continue reading...
  
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• Death threats, bodyguards and a Farc commander called Smurf: living dangerously with Colombia’s nature defenders

  07-11-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Leading Colombian conservationists share their experiences working in the most dangerous country to fight for wildlifePoliticians, conservationists and business people from around the world met last week to discuss how to save nature at the Cop16 biodiversity conference in Cali, Colombia.For those working on the ground, however, it is the most dangerous country in the world to fight for the environment. A third of the 196 environmental defenders killed last year were Colombian. Here, four conser
  
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• How the climate crisis threatens the Panama Canal – and the country’s future

  07-11-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Recent drought restrictions on the waterway cost the country $1bn. Now, newly appointed environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro must find a way to balance sustainability with economic growthA queue of cargo ships stretches across the Caribbean Sea, waiting to traverse the Panama Canal towards the Pacific. It is a cloudy June day and the region and the region has spent over a year in drought, the third worst since the canal opened in 1914, forcing the authorities to restrict the number and size
  
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• Weatherwatch: sea temperature model could guard against shellfish poisoning

  07-11-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Low sea-surface temperatures in winter and spring a strong predictor of high toxin levels in shellfish in summerFolk wisdom says you should only eat shellfish during months containing the letter “r”. That is likely to be because food poisoning from shellfish consumption is more likely during the “r-free” summer months – May to August – when the water is warmer and toxins can multiply more easily, and there is a greater likelihood of seafood spoiling in warmer
  
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• Country diary: Slim pickings at the vineyard – this is what winemakers feared | Sara Hudston

  07-11-2024 06:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Litton Cheney, Dorset: We worked as fast as we could, but the rainy year has been too much for this crop of chardonnay grapes“Eternal gratitude from the wine gods,” promised a poster calling for harvest help. There were photos of a sunny vineyard and a fat bunch of pinot noir grapes, misted purple against golden leaves. I was beguiled.The realities of agricultural work have always been at odds with its depiction. This year, winemakers in south-west England endured mont
  
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• Iceland’s president urged to intervene over licence for Europe’s last whaler

  07-11-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Conservation groups are asking for the decision to allow Hvalur to hunt to be put on hold until after electionA coalition of conservation and animal welfare groups are urging Iceland’s president to step in and stop any plans the prime minister has to issue a whaling licence to Europe’s last whaler before the Icelandic election at the end of the month.Earlier this year, the country granted a one-year licence to Hvalur to kill more than 100 fin whales this hunting season, despite hopes
  
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• This year ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest on record, finds EU space programme

  07-11-2024 04:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Copernicus Climate Change Service says 2024 marks ‘a new milestone’ and should raise ambitions at Cop29 summitIt is “virtually certain” that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, the European Union’s space programme has found.The prognosis comes the week before diplomats meet at the Cop29 climate summit and a day after a majority of voters in the US, the biggest historical polluter of planet-heating gas, chose to make Donald Trump president. Continue reading...
  
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• Donald Trump can’t stop global climate action. If we stick together, it’s the US that will lose out | Bill Hare

  06-11-2024 23:34 via theguardian.com
  
  How damaging this presidency is to the planet depends very much on how other countries react. There’s no time to wasteDonald Trump’s re-election to the White House is a major setback for climate action but ultimately it’s the US that could end up losing out, as the rest of the world will move forward without it.The US is the world’s biggest economy and its second biggest emitter. Positive US engagement on climate has been crucial to landmark leaps forward, like getting th
  
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• Von der Leyen’s Cop29 absence sends ‘fatal signal’, say watchers

  06-11-2024 18:47 via theguardian.com
  
  MEPs express concern for EU climate leadership as commission head confirms she will miss Baku summitUrsula von der Leyen’s decision to miss the Cop29 climate summit is “a fatal signal” and raises questions about Europe’s commitment to the climate crisis, observers have said.The European Commission confirmed on Tuesday that its president would not attend the UN climate talks in Baku, which start on Monday. “The commission is in a transition phase and the president wi
  
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• The sunscreen myth: could it really be causing skin cancer? | Antiviral

  06-11-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Overblown concerns about potential dangers of a common chemical threaten to undermine scientific evidence to the contraryBecause of his job as a dermatologist, Dr Deshan Sebaratnam frequently gets asked questions by friends, family and strangers about skin treatments. But lately, he says, he has been confronted by “a lot of myths around sunscreens”, especially on his social media feed.Among the most frequent is “that sunscreen can actually cause skin cancer”, says Sebarat
  
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• Dick Smith’s ABC radio rant against renewables overflows with ill-informed claims | Temperature Check

  06-11-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Millionaire points to Broken Hill’s blackout to attack the energy transition but experts say he should look at South Australia and EuropeGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFor 15 minutes on Sunday morning, ABC local radio listeners were treated to a rant from Dick Smith as the millionaire attacked Australia’s transition away from fossil fuels, claiming renewables would make electricity unaffordable and cause sweeping blackouts.“It seems we have been sold
  
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• Nature campaigners urge UK taxpayers to take stakes in forest projects

  06-11-2024 12:08 via theguardian.com
  
  Land reform charities call for better regulation of UK’s carbon market so profits can be shared with publicNature campaigners have called for taxpayers to take stakes in forest and peatland projects designed to store carbon, to avoid all the profits from carbon credits going to private investors.A report from the Revive Coalition, an umbrella group for Scottish land reform and conservation charities, says carbon credits also need to be used much more effectively to bolster demand and help
  
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• Vanishing act: Panama’s Guna people forced to move as the sea swallows their island – in pictures

  06-11-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  Earlier this year, families from the Indigenous Guna people on the tiny island of Gardi Sugdub became the first to undergo a climate-related relocation by the Panamanian government because of the threat of rising sea levels. Hundreds of residents moved to Isber Yala, a new town built on the mainland. But many fear that the relocation has put their traditions and culture in perilPhotographs by Euan Wallace Continue reading...
  
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