7 d. ago How high class sex workers from across Brazil are targeting the great and the good at the COP 30 climate change conference

An influx of high-class sex workers have checked into hotels for the jamboree which will begin in earnest on Monday with more than 50,000 delegates expected to attend the two-week junket.

Events

9 d. ago Warning over 1.5C climate goal as 2025 set to be among hottest years on record

A temporary overshoot of the 1.5C climate target virtually impossible to avoid, scientists have said.

Events

1 week ago Missing 1.5C climate target is a moral failure, UN chief tells Cop30 summit

UN secretary general António Guterres urges opening session in Brazil to bring about a ‘fundamental paradigm shift’Triple-whammy of hottest ever years risks ‘irreversible damage’, says UNThe failure to limit global heating to 1.5C is a “moral failure and deadly negligence”, the UN secretary general has said at the opening session of the Cop30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.António Guterres said even a temporary overshoot could “unleash far greater destruction and costs for every nation. It could push ecosystems past catastrophic and irreversible tipping points, expose billions to unliveable conditions, and amplify threats to peace and security”. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago ‘Grim future’ for Great Barrier Reef unless global heating kept to 2C, study finds

University of Queensland modelling says reef will suffer ‘rapid coral decline’ in coming decades but could still recover if targets metSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereThe Great Barrier Reef will undergo “rapid coral decline” until 2050 but could recover if global heating is kept below 2C, according to the most detailed modelling so far of the future of the world’s biggest coral reef.The finding contradicts a widely held view that the decline of the oceanic gem would become irreversible as global temperatures rise above 1.5C, with one report last month suggesting the world’s tropical corals had already reached a tipping point of long-term decline.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Scientists thought Great Barrier Reef doomed if global temperatures rise 1.5C – but a new study finds hope

University of Queensland modelling says reef will suffer ‘rapid coral decline’ in coming decades but could still recover if targets metSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesThe Great Barrier Reef will undergo “rapid coral decline” until 2050 but could recover if global heating is kept below 2C, according to the most detailed modelling so far of the future of the world’s biggest coral reef.The finding contradicts a widely held view that the decline of the oceanic gem would become irreversible as global temperatures rise above 1.5C, with one report last month suggesting the world’s tropical corals had already reached a tipping point of long-term decline.Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago EU agrees on new emissions targets before global climate summit in Brazil

The European Union has announced plans to slash carbon emissions by 90% by 2040

Events

2 w. ago Bill Gates says climate crisis won’t cause ‘humanity’s demise’ in call to shift focus to ‘improving lives’

Billionaire’s statement comes a day after UN said humanity missed 1.5C climate target and warned of devastationBill Gates has called for a “strategic pivot” in the effort against the climate crisis, writing that the world should shift away from trying to limit rising temperatures to instead focusing on efforts to prevent disease and poverty.Writing on his Gates Notes website, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder criticized what he described as a “doomsday view of climate change” which is focusing “too much on near-term emissions goals”. Continue reading...

Society

2 w. ago I am the first Indigenous journalist to exclusively interview António Guterres. How many others will listen?

A young journalist reflects on the UN leader’s responses, and hopes his messages – about human violence on an increasingly hostile planet – resonated before Cop30‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN headThere we were at the edge of the forest. The computer screen had been up for a long time, everything arranged so that nothing would go wrong; that the internet wouldn’t go down, that the computer battery wouldn’t die, and a glass of water and ice in front of me so I wouldn’t be left without words. Silence filled the other side of the camera until a figure appeared, and there he was: António Guterres, the man who speaks for the world, the secretary general of the United Nations.A few weeks earlier, I had received an invitation from Jonathan Watts of the Guardian newspaper, asking me to interview Guterres with him. I accepted. It would be my first time speaking to someone with that level of authority. But what would I ask him? Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head

Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30I am the first Indigenous journalist to exclusively interview António Guterres. How many others will listen?Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned.In his only interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences” for the world.This interview is also published in English, Portuguese and Spanish by Sumaúma. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Dire warning aid cuts are stopping vulnerable nations from preparing for climate disaster

The climate negotiator for Malawi tells Nick Ferris that the slashing of funding, plus the failure to agree a financial target to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, is already having a stark impact

Events

3 w. ago Airport expansion puts UK climate targets in ‘serious jeopardy’, MPs warn

Ministers have not provided evidence economic growth from expanding airports provides enough benefit to outweigh environmental harm, a report says.

Events

3 w. ago ‘A punch in the face’: Germany’s dash for gas raises questions over climate targets

Plans for a fossil fuel project in Wadden Sea nature reserve have angered local people and campaigners, as political enthusiasm for renewables wanesPeering out on a clear day from the windswept dunes that dapple the north-western tip of Germany, on a gull-shaped island in the Wadden Sea nature reserve, tourists hoping to spot seals may soon see a dark metal platform rise out of the water.The planned structure is one of several fossil fuel projects that Germany is pushing to build despite a legal deadline to stop polluting the atmosphere with carbon emissions in 20 years’ time. The joint Dutch-German venture, which received the green light from regional authorities last month, seeks to extract 13bn cubic metres of gas from just outside a protected area at the marine border between the two countries. Continue reading...

Society